Vol. XV JUNE, 1919 No. 2
INDIANA
MAGAZINE
OF HISTORY
CONTENl ^
Page
i/
1 HE Coming of the English to Indiana in 1817 and
Their Neighbors — John E, Iglehart.-- 89
The American Marines at Verdun, Chateau
Thierry, Bouresches and Belleau Wood^—
Harrison Cole 179
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INDIANA
MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
Vol. XV JUNE, 1919 No. 2
The Coming of the English to Indiana
in 1817 and Their Hoosier
Neighbors
By John E. Iglehart, Evansville, Ind.
Introduction
(Copyright 1919, by John E. Iglehart)
In 1916, at the request of the mayor of the city of
Evansville, the writer undertook the organization and direc-
tion of the work of a Historical Commission of the Evansville
Centennial for 1917. With a view to qualify himself better
for the work he sought the literature of the early western
travelers, as well as other writers, and began a search in the
early records of the city and county of Vanderburgh, as well
as of Warrick and Knox counties, out of which Vanderburgh
county had been created.
The travels of William Faux in the west in the fall and
winter of 1819 resulted from his intimacy with the Ingle
family in Somersham, Huntingdonshire, England, where both
families lived, and a promise made by Faux to Rev. John
Ingle, a Baptist minister, that the former would visit the son
of the latter at Saundersville in Vanderburgh county. The
diary of Faux during five weeks he spent in John Ingle's
cabin is the only record in existence of the first British set-
tlement in Indiana. While local histories have recorded the
S^9/Z
90 Indiana Magazine of History
lives of many mmebers of that settlement and their descend-
ants, including many of the leading men of the community,
and in southwestern Indiana for one hundred years, no men-
tion is made in any of them of the colony as Faux describes it.
When the war came on in 1917 the Historical Commission
ceased its labors. The writer, as a descendant of John Ingle
of Somersham and as a representative of three pioneer fam-
ilies of that settlement, felt a call to restore the fading pic-
ture, and to trace the work and lives of the emigrants and
their descendants as town builders and commonwealth build-
ers, which seemed to him worthy to be recorded.
The chief qualifications of the writer for the work lay in
the fact that he had personally known some of the original
emigrants of the first generation and many of their children,
who had been born in England, among whom was his mother.
He liad more or less a knowledge of the history of the leaders
of the settlement, as well as a large number of the one hun-
dred or more families who came into the settlement in the
first decade. In a law practice of about fifty years in Evans-
ville, where he has lived a still longer time, he was in a man-
ner familiar with the early history of the people of the city
and county. So that in handling the records and files of the
city and county from the beginning as late as 1830, the wTiter
was able, so to speak, to become acquainted with the people
of the town and county, their character and their work in the
first decade, and to interpret many of the old records more
fully than could have been done by a stranger. In tracing the
histoiy of the beginnings of the early British settlement, the
personal knowledge of Mr. Edward Maidlow, still living in
excellent health, and James Erskine, recently deceased, who
were born in it in 1831, were of great assistance, as has been
Mrs. Samuel G. Evans, a granddaughter of Saunders Horn-
brook, Sr., who has permitted the writer to examine the fani-
ily correspondence of the early time.
As will appear in this sketch, the movement represented
in the Indiana colony was part of a greater one and a clear
presentation of the whole was necessaiy to a history of the
part. No attempt has been made to repeat the histor>' of the
Birkbeck-Flower movement, so fully presented in the writings
Iglehart: Coming of the English to Indiana 91
of those two men. The correctness of Prof. Edwin Erie
Sparks' statement as to the final outcome of the Illinois colony,
was challenjred by Mr. Walter Colyer, and the writer was glad
to avail himself of the opportunity to invite Mr. Colyer to
state the facts upon the other side of the matter, which are
presented by him probably as well and as fully as can be done,
and they will probably be the last word on that subject.
The fmal success of each of these colonies is not to be
sought at this time, in outward evidence of distinguishing
British life, manners, or customs in any form, as Professor
Sparks seems to imply. The emigrants, though of English,
Irish and Scotch birth, became immediately American and
their descendant's are as distinctly such today in every re-
spect, as any portion of the American people.
The Hoosier neighbors of the colonists in southera Indi-
ana are traced with some care, both the native leaders and the
body of the people with whom they lived as citizens and neigh-
bors. Morris Birkbeck's descriptions in his Notes and Letters
will always remain a valuable contribution to the history of
the time. His description of the people of Princeton, quoted
in the Edinburgh Review, is truthful, as the writer has every
reason to believe, and he has practiced law in Princeton and
on the circuit for almost fifty years and has a fair general
knowledge of the people of Gibson county. While the influ-
ence of the early English and other foreigners and the native
eastern people has been felt in southern Indiana, there is no
doubt that the great body of the people of the southern portion
of the State are of southern descent.
In dealing with the status of those people in the early
history of the State, any fair critic must realize that alto-
gether undue emphasis has to this time been placed in public
opinion east of Indiana upon descriptions by early writers,
who have not fairly interpreted the people, but who have
taken the bottom layer to represent the whole people, or have
been, correctly or not, so interpreted. In presenting Birk-
beck's picture of these people, as a fair type of the plain peo-
ple, who were much similar to the body of the people in all
of the counties of southern Indiana, the writer may seem to
have dealt with the subject as an advocate and a partisan. He
92 Itidimui Magazine of History
has eliminated as irrelevant to a truthful picture of the better
class of Hoosiers, The Hoosier School Master entire, and
much of the New Purchase, and has presented his facts and
reasons.
Both the chapter on the Men of the Western Waters by
Roosevelt and the new and splendid interpretation of frontier
life in the Old North West by Frederick G. Turner, relate to
the people, the location and the time of which we are writing
and are germane to the description of the Hoosier neighbors
of the British colonists, who included the family of Abraham
Lincoln.
The references to Abraham Lincoln are intended chiefly
to call attention to him as a Hoosier neighbor of the British
colony during its first decade and longer, and the influence
upon his character of a life among the pioneer farmers of
southwestern Indiana, and to point out avenues of oppor-
tunity and information which existed within his reach, dur-
ing his residence in Indiana, up to the time he was twenty-one
years of age and which furnish facts relevant in the history
of the main theme. That he had more opportunities and read
more books than his historians are able to trace is conceded
by them.
The writer had prepared biographical data, with illustra-
tions, of a number of the original settlers and their descend-
ants, among the latter a number of the representative men
and women in this section of the State, as well as elsewhere,
as a most complete verification of his statements, but the
limitations of a magazine article properly exclude them.
The First English Settlers
In the summer of 1817, Saunders Hornbrook, Sr., of
Tavistock, Devonshire, England, perfected arrangements for
his son, Saunders Hornbrook, Jr., to come to America with
his two sisters, and furnished him money to purchase land,
build temporary improvements and prepare accommodations
for the rest of the family, in the wilderness of the far west.
He intended to follow when the accommodations were ready.
His wife, a woman of unusual ability, was to remain behind a
lyUhart: Cominy of the English to Indiana 93
couple of years with the two smaller children and settle up
the business. The senior Hornbrook operated large manufac-
tories (for the time), woolen mills and an iron foundry. He
was an educated man, as were his ancestors for several gen-
erations before him, and came of good stock.
The first week in October, 1817, the junior Hornbrook,
with his sisters, arrived at Pigeon creek, "a place merely for
loading and discharging vessels for the western part of Indi-
ana State." Evansville, located half a mile above the mouth
of Pigeon creek, then consisted of thirteen log houses. A
road ran out to the river through the blul!" bank at a point
now the foot of Main street. He proceeded without delay to
Princeton, twenty-seven miles due north, where Birkbeck and
Flower had established temporary quarters, while arrange-
ments for the accommodations of the Prairie settlement
across the Wabash river were in progress. Both Flower and
Birkbeck were well known in England, and Hornbrook, Sr.,
had planned to join their settlement and purchase about 1,000
acres of land on which to settle with his family. Their scheme
of land speculation, however, limited the amount of the pur-
chase of one farmer to one-half section of land, 320 acres,
required the purchaser to take it where it was assigned him,
and the nearest to the proposed village centre where Horn-
brook could buy was about twenty miles distant. He was re-
quired to pay a price per acre greater than that for which
equally good or better land, much nearer in the government
domain, could be bought.
These terms young Hornbrook indignantly refused. He
returned to Princeton, "and after fourteen days constant fag,
sometimes one and sometimes two meals a day, sleeping in a
barn or cabin at night, he fixed on a spot of one and one-half
sections," nine hundred and sixty acres, about ten miles from
the Ohio river, and seventeen miles from Princeton, which he
immediately entered at the land otlice at Vincennes.'
Hornbrook came by the Red Banks trail from Princeton,
and located just east of it. This trail was one of the earliest
routes located by the Indiana and extended from the river
• I'rlvat*- Utter of Siiunder« Hornbrook. Sr. dated Jan. 7. 1818. at Tavlfltock.
94 ImUa)ui Magazine of H {■story
north to Princeton, Vincenncs and Terre Haute and beyond
to the Indian \ iUajres at a very early day.- The survey of this
line by Jacob Fowler in 1806 shows it terminates at the Ohio
river about five miles below the mouth of Pigeon creek in
section 3, town 7, S. R. 11 W. about seven miles north of Hen-
derson (Red Banks). Here local history says the channel
was very narrow on account of sand bars on both sides of the
river and in low water was crossed by whites and Indians
without boats.'' (Wilson's map places the ford at Red Banks
about seven miles lower down the river.) This testimony is
corroborated, by descriptions in deeds, referring to this trail,
which are not found south of this ford.^
"Evaiis\llle rlRht side. Above the mouth of Pig»on creek. This is a very
thrivinK town, sitiiaHnl in the bend of tho river, fifty-four miles south of Vln-
cennes. It is tlie sent of Justice for VanderburRh county. Indiana : chann«l nearest
rigrht shore, round a high bar at the loft hand point, opposite Pigeon creek. Two
miles below Pigeon creek there is a hard bar on the right : channel near the left
shore, and when you approach the left hand point below, keep over in the bend
on the right, to avoid a large bar on the left, round the point ; when past the
latter, keep well over to the left again, to avoid the large bar on the right."
This location by Hornbrook was in October or November,
1817. When the senior Hornbrook came over in the following
summer. 1818, he met Edward Maidlow. with his family, at
Wheeling, bound for the Prairie settlement. They bought
and fitted up an ark and came by water to Evansville together,
and Maidlow located adjoining Hornbrook, entering about the
same quantity of land as Hornbrook.
In April, the same year, George Flower, on his second trip
to America, sailed from England in the ship Anna Maria,
chartered by him, with a band of emigrants for his colony,
with the deck of the ship covered with a selection of fine
stock, preceded by a ship similarly loaded.' Among the pas-
sengers who came with them, named by Flower in his history
of the settlement, was John Ingle, his wife, five young chil-
' George R. Wilson, Earhi Indian Trails and fturvrf/s. Map 394, 360, .161.
' Seb.i8tlan Henrich. the veteran Abstractor, procured this testimony a gen-
eration ago from reli.ible sources.
♦The following extract from The Western Pilot, by S;imuel Cummings. pub-
lished in 1825. which furnishes also in 20 maps the course of the Ohio river from
Pittsburgh to the Misnisiiippi river, shows the s.ind bars mentioned at the ter-
minus of the Red Banks trail as located in Fowler's survey ;
'George Flowers. Hiatory of the English Settlement in Edwards Count}/, til.
100.
Ifflchart: Cojiihig of the Enrjlish tn Indiana 95
dren and maid, who came to Princeton and remained a short
time with Injrie's friend, Jiid^re WilMam Prince, after whom
Princeton, then four years old. was named. There can be no
doubt that it was the arrival of Georg^e Flower's ship, which
sailed in April. 1S18, thus mentioned:"'
A Nrw Vork jkiikt S41.vk: Wi* li'iirii tliiit n (;<'Utl('iiiaii Iuih liitHy iirrlvcd
in tlilxflty frtmi Kujilmul \vhos«« oltJtMt is t<> M-ttlo in tlie Illinois territ*)ry —
that Ills f.iiiiily iiiul st'ltlt-rs. liron^'lit over with liini. iiniouiit to tifty-one
iKTst^ns - (lijit lu» liJiK fnrnislit'tl lilms<'lf witli imrhultuiiil Iniiilcnimts. S4>04lfl
of v:irions ivintis. sonu* cows. sliiH-p iind jiIks for bri'ttlinj;, and aibonl lUO.OOO
|K>nn<Is sterling in money.
'I'liis Is iloln;: Imsint'ss to a >:i-pat national as well as individual profit;
and if ;:c:itk>iiu'n of fortnnc anil oiitci -prise will eniii:i-:it<> in tlit> same man-
ner, our Western .""^tates will shortly he the ni«tst tiourishln;; part of the
world.
The amount of cash in the party was probably over-stated,
although there were a number of well-to-do individuals in
the party.
After a survey of the situation, Ingle, instead of going as
he had intended to the Illinois settlement, bought a section of
land near Hornbrook, about the time that ^laidlow purchased.
Hornbrook and Maidlow were men of middle age with good
sized families of grown children, a number of whom later in-
termarried. Maidlow was "a most intelligent and respectable
Hampshire farmer, who brought considerable capital and
English habits and feelings the best in the world."' He pre-
ferred to remain a farmer and hold his land for its increase.
Ingle outlived Hornbrook and Maidlow. He was for many
years an active leader in public matters and, like Hornbrook
and Maidlow, remained on his farm all his life. All of them
were strong men and natural leaders, who became and re-
mained during their lives the center of a large circle in the
Saundersville community, exercising wide and permanent
influence.
The McJohnstons and Hillyards, Irish, who came in 1818.
and the Wheelers. English, and the Erskines, Scotch-Irish
emigrant's, who came in 1819, all located a few miles east of
Saundersville. They were people of the same type, all men
* sues' Wetklu Reffiater. June 6. 1818. XIV. 256.
'ThwaltfB. Early Weatrm Traveta, XI. 234.
96 Indiatia Magazine of History
of liiirh purposes and cliaracter. With, or following soon after
all of those men. came followers, relatives or friends. This
was the beginning of the British settlement in Indiana which,
in November, 1819, Faux describes as containing fifty-three
families in possession of 12,800 acres of land entered, having
capital to the amount of eighty thousand dollars.'^ Within two
years after that date there were in the settlement over one
hundred families, represening probably from five hundred to
seven hundred and fifty people.
The panic then existing in America, perhaps with im-
proved conditions of the people in England, possibly bettered
as the effect of wholesale expatriation in this general move-
ment, checked the rapid growth of the Indiana colony for
some years. But emigration never wholly ceased. Later in
the forties and early fifties renewed emigration in large num-
bers set in fiom Great Britain. These later emigrants were
attracted largely by relatives, friends or acquaintances of the
British settlers and their descendants, who by that time were
among the foremost leaders and town builders in the rapidly
growing town of Evansville. That town was platted in 1817,
was chartered a year later, and was now located near the
southern boundary of the settlement, which had extended
toward Evansville.
To the writer it seemed a matter of more than local interest
to trace the influence of these pioneers and their associates of
the first decade of the settlement, to trace their struggles with
adverse elements peculiar to the locality, in their stand for
law, order, morality and high Christian civilization in south-
western Indiana, at the beginning of societj' itself, and when
the influences of organized government were first authori-
tatively felt here.
The relation of the settlement to the new town of Evans-
ville was most intimate. A few miles distance between them
in that day was counted slight obstacle to such intimacy.
They grew from beginnings at the same time and were soon
•ThwaltPS, Early Western Travris. XI. :;40. Aaron Woods. Sketrhrs. \3. men-
tions English settlements In Drarbom and Kranklln counties as well as In Van-
derburgh county. W.' ttnd a short reference to the settlement In Dearborn county.
Archibald Shaw. //Uf. of Dearborn, 212-214. but no reference to the one In
Franklin county.
lylchart: Coming of the E^f/^w/i to Indiana 97
almost united by the Mechanicsville (or Strin^own) ridge,
which was from the beginning settled by the better class of
pioneers and on which were scattered early a few of the
British colony. The British settlement became an integral
part of the foundation, growth and expansion of the city of
Evansville, which was destined to become a large city, in
which members of the settlement had an opportunity not
ofVered to the other purely agi'icultural British settlements
of the time.
Some of the descendants of these British pioneers, includ-
ing some of the younger generation born in England, such as
John Ingle, Jr., and Philip Hornbrook, were among the lead-
ing citizens of Evansville in its early growth and formative
period. The influence generally of the whole settlement on
the agricultural community, its intelligence, morality and so-
ciety was also marked. More than any other single element,
the influence from the source mentioned aided in the estab-
lishment of high standards of social and political life and
institutions.
Before the days of railroads and the telegraph, repre-
sentatives of the British settlement were leaders in the town
of Evansville. They were leaders in the building of the first
canal, the first railroad and the first telegraph line in south-
western Indiana, and in the promoting of the first coal mine,
and river craft attachment to furnish fuel to steamboats on
the river and the people of Evansville at its wharf. They
were leaders, in the beginning, of the educational institutions
of the city of Evansville at the time of the creation of the
public school system of Indiana. They were leaders in the
organization and support of the first agricultural society in
the county"*, and the early agricultural reports of the State
contain the names of one of the younger leaders in the settle-
ment as among the first contributors to the literature of sci-
entific agriculture." In pioneer work in the religious insti-
•• Philip Hornbrook waa'Becr<>tar>' ot the nr»t a«rieultur:il society In Viuidor-
bufKh county and so continued during his life. When he died the society aban-
doned Its meetlnsa
" Int.reBilnK articles on sclentldc agriculture by Andrew Ersklno, Indiana
Agricultural Reports, 1866. 387. 392; 1859, 60. 119.
98 Indiana Magazine of History
tutions of the entire county they were first, as the records
show.
From 1819, when the Wheeler brothers and Robert Par-
rett came into the settlement, and for twelve or fifteen years
afterwards, while the community was too poor to build a
church or support a preacher, the town of Evansville itself,
as well as the rural districts, relied almost entirely upon them
— excepting? an occasional visit of a Presbyterian missionary,
or the Methodist circuit rider — for an educated ministry.
The names of Hornbrook. Ingle, IMaidlow. Parrett, Hill-
yard. Wheeler, Erskine and others were early well known in
Vincennes, New Harmony, Albion, Princeton, Evansville, and
surrounding country, and for one hundred years, through
several generations, those names have stood for truth, hon-
esty, and justice in dealing with others. The large repre-
sentation of those families among the prominent citizens of
Evansville, as well as some well known in wider fields, is due
in no small degree to this fact. Among the latter, now living,
will appear names known throughout the countiy in litera-
ture and great moral refonn and when the United States, in
November, 1918, assumed government control of all telegraph
as well as telephone lines in the countiy, a grandson of Rob-
ert Parrett, Union Bethell, was placed in charge of them all.
Before entering more fully into these details, it will be
appropriate to give an outline of the wider movement recog-
nized at the time l)y leading authority in Great Britain and
America, as of world-wide importance, and of which the Indi-
ana colony was a part.
Usually the significance of local histoiy is that it is part
of a greater whole. The right and vital sort of local history is
the sort which may l)e written with lifted eyes — the sort
which has a horizon and an outlook upon the world.'-'
English Emigration to America After 1815
The four British colonies in America were parts of a
single movement, resulting from the same causes. Professor
Sparks, in an excellent short summarj' of the movement, says :
" Wood row Wilson. The Course of American History, 216.
I git hart: Coming of the Etiglish to Indiana 99
KUKli^b cttlnnlfs wiTf pliiiiti'*! Ill iMstt-ru iVunsylvHiilii, iiloiiK tUe Sus-
quotiaiia river; in I^jujc IkIjiiuI, New York; lii tin* Huutlii'rn iH)rtloii of the
State of Indiana, and in Mouttjeasteni IIlinoiH. • • • The luoveiueut
develoiKHl at tlie time of the riHonstriK'tion jn'rlml of KuroiK'an iilstor)',
wlii'U the nations were atteniptiiiK to resiinie tlieir normal e<."onouilc reia-
tiouH, after twenty years of almost oMitiniious war. • • • The iHH)ple
blauuHl all their niiserieK upon the Kovernruent.is
William Cobbet. in his dedication to Thomas Hulme's
Journal of a tour of the far west in 1818, ascribes the activity
of the latter to his zeal aj?ainst the twin monsters, tyranny
and priestcraft, and a desire to assist in providing a retreat
for the oppressed. He speaks of the great numlxjrs of immi-
grants flocking to the western countries, the newest of the
New World, toward which the writings of Morris Birkbeck
had called their pointed attention. Especially, were so at-
tracted those Englishmen, "who having something left to be
robbed of, and wishing to preserve it, were looking towards
America as a place of refuge from the borougliinongers and
the Holy Alliance."' ^
Hulmc says he saw that the incomes of his childi*en were
all pawned to pay the debts of the borough or seat owners.
That of whatever he might be able to give his children, which
was a very substantial sum, as well as of what they might be
able to earn, more than one-half would be taken away to feed
pensioned lords and ladies, "soldiers to shoot at us, parsons
to persecute us, and fundholders, who had lent their money to
be applied to purposes of enslaving us.'^
Richard Flower said in his letter of August 20, 1821, that
the grand reason for emigration was to escape that over-
whelming system of taxation, which had diminished the prop-
erty of the emigrants, and threatened, if they staid much
longer, to swallow up th*^ whole. He adds:
How many of my brother farmers have lost their allV H<»w many have
been added to the list of |Min|ters. sin<e we left our lK>love«l roiiiitry, news-
paiKMs and private letters, aurkiiltnral nut'tiufrs and parliamentary pro-
ceetlinys re|Hirts sutli<-i(>ntly de*-lare."i
" Erie Hp<irkB. KngliaH Settlement in the llhuois. introduction.
"TliwalKn, Early Weatrrn Truvrls, X 19-21.
»»Thwalte». Ktirly Western Travtia, X 23.
»• Id. 146.
100 InilUinu Magazine of History
Rev. John Ingle, of Somersham, so often mentioned by
Faux in his Travels, thus writes to his son, John Ingle, of
Saundersville, eighteen months after the emigration of the
hUter to the Indiana colony:
I U)ost slucori'ly cougratiilate you on your choice nnd successful remov-
ing from your niitive country: you have privations, ynu have calculated
uiK)n, and from your a«counts, fewer than you expected. Had you stopped
bere, you would have llve<l somehow, but you could not have continued in
the society you have been used to. Here the smaller stations of property
appear prndually wearing to ])auperlsm and the prospect before us Is un-
promising indeed ; agriculture dark, commercial and maimfacluring sta-
tions no less so. Prices are low. markets are falling, corn traders stopping,
laborers out of employ, and money so scarce as in a great measure, what
can be omittiMl, iM>ssibly. is umitted. Poor rates are enormous and api>ear-
ances seem to tell us they will still increase.
Faux gives as the reason of James Maidlow for emi-
grating, that after a fair trial, with a large farm, he found
it impossible to fann, without losing money.
Payton Wheeler, a tradesman from Chelsea, told Faux
that having a wife and eight children, he was determined on
emigration by soberly looking into his affairs and finding
that he had an increasing family, and decreasing property,
having lost during his last year, among his tradsemen, 1,500
pounds. Birkbeck, in his Notes, is thus quoted in the Edin-
burgh Review:
A Nation, with half its jiopulation supportetl by alms, or poor-rates,
and one-fourth of its income derive<l from taxes, many of which are dried
up in their sources, or siiee<lily becoming so, must teem with emigrants from
one end to the other, and. for such as myself, who have had "mtthing to
do with the laws but obey them." it is quite reasonable and just to secure
a timely retreat from the approaching crisis — either of anarchy or
despotism.
An Knglish farmer, tu which il.iss I had the Imnitr to belong, is in
possession of the .same rights and privileges with the villeins of old time,
and exhibits for the most part, a suitable political character. He has no
voice In the api>ointmeut of the legislature, unless he hapi>en to possess a
freehold of forty shillings a year, and he is then expected to vote In the
Interest of his lamllord. He has no concern with public affairs, excepting
as a tax-payer, a jiarish officer, or a militiaman. He has no right to appear
at a county meeting, unless the word Inhabitant .should find its way into the
sheriflTs invitation: in this case he may show his face among the nobility,
clergy, and f reeh»>lders ; a felicity which once occurred to my.self, when the
Iglehart: Coming of the English to Indiana 101
inhultiUiuts of Surrey were luvlted to atMittt ibe geutry ia crying dowu
the lui'ome Tax.
Thus, having no eltH-tlve franrUlse, an KnKll^h fanner can scarcely be
said to have a |>oUtlcal exlstemH*; aud i>ollUcal duties he has none, except
such as, under existing clrrunistances, would Inevitably consign blm to the
special guardlanshl|) of the Secretary of State for the home department.
Following: this, the Revieiv. concedes that "whoever pre-
fers his own to any other country, as a place of residence,
must be content to pay an enormous price for the g-ratification
of his wish."'" The Rerieiv reproves the writers of works of
travel and the magazines which manifested hatred of Amer-
ica, and things American, and it shows an appreciation of
American growth and coming greatness, prophetic of what
the world concedes today.
Confirming the experience of Hulme and others, as to re-
lig-ious persecution, Saunders Hombrook, Sr., the father of
the British settlement in Indiana, whose mother, Barbara,
was the daughter of Rev S. Richards, of Calstock, in Devon-
shire, a Unitarian minister, gave as his reason for emigration,
in addition to business depression, the fact that he was fined
a shilling for attendance at the Unitarian chapel of each
member of his family and household.
As early as the end of 1816 the problem of emigration
from Great Britain to America had become a serious on6,
both to the British government, and to the people of America.
In New York alone nearly 2,000 such emigrants who, accord-
ing to John Bradbur>', foolishly remained about the cities till
their money gave out, were stranded and appealed to their
home government for aid. Competition among laborers was
great, as emigrants were arriving from all of the nations of
Europe. In February, 1817, the British consul in New York,
by newspaper advertisement, announced "the important priv-
ilege to such English emigrants, to settle in upper Canada or
Nova Scotia." This indicated the scheme of a British colony,
charged in the American press to be the result of the work
of a British spy. Colonies west of the mountains were then
urged on account of a temperate climate better adapted to
" KdJnburifh Review. 1818. Vol. -\XX. 123.
102 I)i<fiana Magazine of History
settlers, than the rigorous weather of upper Canada and Nova
Scotia.
An ambitious plan of western colonization on a large scale
to provide for such emigrants as preferred to remain in the
United States, was outlined in detail in an American maga-
zine in July, 1817.'^ Bradbury's Travels in 1809, 1810 and
1811 published in August. 1817, gave a most favorable de-
scription of the scattered people of the west and recommended
colonies for mutual protection of emigrants, which practice,
he says, was not confined to newcomers only, but was fre-
quently adopted among old settlers. Referring to the latter,
he says :
Witli whom it is a continn:!! bond of .unity niul social iiitorooursp, and
in no part of the world is >:ood ni>iKhl)orsliij» found in greater i>erfectiou
tiian iu the western territory or in America peuerally.
Morris Birkbeck's Notes came out in Philadelphia, in the
fall of 1817, before they were published in England. William
Darby's Enii^graoits' Guide, giving full directions to emi-
grants, was published in America about the same time. In
the May number, 1818, of the AnaUctic Review, appeared a
review of both of these works, in which the writer refers ap-
provingly to Birkbeck's scheme and says that his "plans in
the State of Indiana, bid fair to bring about the realization of
our more flattering hopes." Birkbeck's colony was in Illinois,
on the edge of the prairie beyond the heavy timber belt in
Indiana, which extended to the Wabash river. His temporary
headquarters were, however, in Indiana and he refers to the
people of the latter State in his work.
When the movement among the better class of British emi-
grants followed that of the more shiftless or unfortunate
class mentioned, the former sent out agents to western Amer-
ica to look at the country and make recommendations. Such
an agent was William Bradshaw Fearon, a London physician,
who was unfairly denounced as untruthful by Cobbett, of the
Long Island colony, and as an agent of the British govern-
ment by George Flower. Referring to the character of men
and women, who were a correct type of the leaders of the
" Analectic Review, Phila. X. 52.
Igh'hart: Coniing of the English to Indiana 103
first English settlement in Indiana, as well as, we have reason
to believe, the Illinois settlement, Mr. Fearon says, in sub-
stance.'"
At the time of his appointment as the agent of thirty-
nine English families to investigate and report upon the sub-
ject of a location in the west, emigration had assumed a new
character. It was no longer merely the poor, the idle, the
profligate or the wildly speculative, who were proposing to
quit their native country, but men also of capital, of industry,
of sober and regular pursuits; men of reflection, who appre-
hended approaching evils; men of upright and conscientious
minds, to whose happiness civil and religious liberty were es-
sential. And men of domestic feeling, who wished to provide
for the future support and prosperity of their offspring.
The design of emigrating by colony to Illinois was formed
by Morris Birkbeck, who in 1817, in Philadelphia and in 1818
in London, published his Notes of his journey and described
his plans, his location, in the small prairies of Illinois adjoin-
ing timber land, and its advantages. His appeal to the
British people met with a response of approval so general as
to alarm the partisans of the goverimient, and to provoke
from them attacks upon America and things American ; trav-
elers like Fearon and Faux were biased with this spirit. It
was said of him by Faux that "no man since Columbus, had
done so much toward peopling America, as Morris Birbeck."
To Birkbeck more than all others, was due the first leader-
ship of the colony, in the prairie of Illinois, as well as of other
emigrants in the far west, at this time, who did not join his
colony. He was a highly educated man. a large and successful
tenant farmer, of 1,500 acres, called Wanborough, near Guil-
ford, in the county of Surrey. He had accumulated property
which he converted into about 55,000 dollars cash, which he
invested in his scheme of emigration. A large number of his
employees and former tenants joined him and became tenants
or small purchasers of land from him. Some returned to
England. Flleven editions in English of Birkbeck's Notes
•» Fearon 'b Hketchra of America, Introduction. "Almoat eviry vessel from
EnRlancI brlriRH iiiorv or less paaBenRcrti — the iiirrfiit of IminiKrutlon la steady,
and of very r»j«p«ctable character." S'iUa' Jtigiater, May 17, 1817, V. XII, p. 185.
104 Indiana Magazine of History
were published during 1817, 1818 and 1819, in Philadelphia,
London. Dublin and Cork, and a German translation was
published in Jena in 1818.-" His Letters from Illinois were
pul)lished in seven editions in P^nglish in 1818, and in 1819
were translated into French and German,
George Flower was the son of Richard Flower, who was
a large brewer at Hertford, the county town of Hertfordshire,
who had retired from business after acquiring a competence,
and lived upon a beautiful estate called Marden. He was the
head of a prominent family, still influential in England. He
placed a large sum at the disposal of his son, George, then 29
years of age, and personally joined him in promoting the suc-
cess of the colony where he lived the remainder of his life.
Birkbeck and Flower sought to buy an entire township of
alxnit 40,000 acres, but this required an act of congress to
make an exception to the government method of selling land,
and that plan failed. The scheme outlined in Birkbeck's
Notes was therefore modified and Birkbeck and Flower
bought 16,000 acres in one body and other tracts were from
time to time added by them and by individual purchases. It
is not unlikely that Birkbeck and Flower might have obtained
the privilege of buying one or more townships of land in a
body without its offer at public sale, if the Hibernian soci-
eties of New York. Philadelphia and Baltimore had not at
the same time petitioned congress for large concessions to the
Irish emigrants for colonization in bodies in the west. The
House of Representatives, by a decisive vote, adopted a com-
mittee report adverse to these petitions, and which called at-
tention to others without naming them, doubtless including
that of Birkbeck and Flower.'-' An unfortunate breach be-
tween the two men at the very beginning of their plans pre-
vented them ever meeting or acting together and the two men
organized rival towns, Birkbeck at Wanboro and Flower at
Albion, only a few miles apart. Birkl)eck died in 1825 and
Wanboro later disappeared, Albion became the county seat
and absorbed the business of the former town. Birkbeck was
the practical farmer. Before his emigration, he enjoyed a
""Solon Justii.s Buck. lUinoia in ISM. 112.
"Silea- Weekly Repister. 1818, XR', 256 and 280.
Jglehati: Comhw of the English in Indiana 105
widespread celebrity as being one of the first practical as well
as theoretical fanners of tlie kingdom. His premature and
early death by drowning in 1825 cut short his plans, and the
loss of Flower in Birkbeck's alienation and death, just at the
time of an expected reconciliation, was very great, equally to
their original scheme and to George Flower personally.
Flower was not raised a farmer and when he built Park
House in the winter of 1818-19 for his father, later occupied
by himself, it was for years maintained much as a great
county estate in England. It was said when built to be the
finest house west of the Allegheny mountains.
To Morris Birkbeck belongs the credit of the conception of
the English colony in the prairie of Illinois, a publication of
the description of the country, and a presentation of states-
manlike view of the advantages of the far west to the inhab-
itants of the old world, then considering emigration. This
exerted an extraordinary influence upon the British people.
While in America, his son in England fitted out a ship, char-
tered by him, which brought a ship load of emigrants and
supplies in April, 1818. He was nominated secretary of state
ad interim of the new State of Ilfinois and on political
grounds, only, the senate refused to confirm his appointment.
His intimacy with Governor Edward Coles, while the latter
was on a diplomatic mission abroad, before he became gov-
ernor, is believed to have influenced his selection of Illinois,
as a field for his emigration scheme. He is recognized by the
best authority as among the first men of the State, in defeating
the attempt to impose slavery on the Stiite by a new constitu-
tion.-'- Richard Flower was so recognized by Governor Coles,
who appealed to him personally for aid in that crisis.-''. Birk-
beck's descendants in America and Australia, have been and
are highly respectable and successful people, some of them of
much prominence.
To George Flower belongs the credit of co-operation with
Birkbeck, the puI)lication of Birkbeck's Notes, one copy of
which he carried to Philadelphia and one to London, the
^ Wilwiiljurn, Sketch of Edward Colea. 188; Dwiglit Hurrls. Negro Servitudt
in lllinoit, 44.
" Wunhburn'e Sketchea of Edicard Colea, 145.
106 Indiana Magazine of Hii^tnnj
chartering of ships, the creation of Albion as a going con-
cern and the devotion of his Hfe to the work in which Richard
Flower, his father, joined and invested a large fortune for
that time.
Richard Flower, in 1824, was commissioned by George
Rapp. the head of the New Harmony settlement, to sell out
the property of the Rappite colony and Flower visited Scot-
land and interested Robert Owen, who made the purchase In
that year. It appears that Flower found Owen as the pur-
chaser.-^
George Flower was a man of commanding presence, and
of large natural ability. His descendants have almost, with-
out exception, been remarkable people intellectually. His
grandson. Rev. George F. Pentecost, D. D., still living in Phil-
adelphia, in the active ministry in a great church at 75, has
been and remains one of the most eloquent, able and remark-
able men in the American pulpit.
Enormous sums of motley were spent in many ways veiy
early by the Flowers for the betterment and improvement of
the colony and its inhabitants and to attract emigrants. They,
with Birkbeck, were broad, liberal and philanthropic. Their
money so lavishly spent, was not a wise financial investment
in the primitive state of society and economic development of
the country, then just commencing. The final success of the
prairie agricultural colony was to be from the labor of the
individual farmer and his family, acting independently. Large
sums invested so far in advance of the times in the wilder-
ness, were never returned and George Flower and his wife
lived to endure "pinching penury" in the neighborhood of his
former grandeur. He and his wife died the same day at
Grayville. Illinois. January 15, 1862.
The Illinois Settlement
It i.^ not our purpose to repeat the story of the founding
of the Illinois settlement and its gradual evolution into an
intelligent and successful agricultural community with the
** George Flower. Hiatory of the Enghih Settlement in Edicarda Count]/, 61,
note.
Iglehart: Coming of the English to Indiana 107
attractive and cultured county seat of Albion. Birkbeck's
and Flower's works conUiin a full account of the details.
Professor Sparks' English ScttlcmetU in Illinois is merely a
reprint of interestinjf letters of Richard Flower, and Morris
Birkl>eck. descriptive of the times and country in their rela-
tionship to this emiyrration. He did not claim to have before
him all the facts in relation to the progress of that settlement,
nor any acquaintance with the community necessary for a de-
termination of the question of the success of the Illinois colony
of which he speaks in unfavorable terms. His statement that
a very few descendants of the English settlers are yet to be
found in Edwards county would seem to be a misappre-
hension.
The purpose of all of these English emigrants in Illinois
and Indiana was not to form English colonies in America,
with English customs or laws, "or with a separate or inde-
pendent existence. This was the opposite of Birkbeck's scheme
outlined in his Notes. It was rather their movement together
into a new country for the betterment of men and women of
common hopes and aims. It was to become pioneers and
citizens of a democratic republic, where the oppressive bur-
den of rents, tithes, poor rates and taxes from which they fled,
practically had no existence. They came, too, like the Pilgrims
of old, to seek freedom from oppression, including freedom to
worship God. All of the Americans were emigrants or de-
scendants of emigrants. The English settlers ceased to be
foreigners, they became Americans, with all others.
The success, in a sense, of an English settlement in the
beginning of a community like this, lay in its perfect union
with all the better elements of population as then came into
the country, and they came rapidly. Its highest success lay
in the extent of its contributions to the building of character
among the people, to the elevation of ideals, to the establish-
ment of public opinion, based on correct stiindards of right
and wrong, leadership in establishing public imprownonts,
churches, school houses, introducing good stock, in creating
improved farms, early roads, bridges and mills, and later,
canals, railroads, telegraph and a system of public education.
108 Indiana Maijazinc of Hu^tory
as well as everythinir enterinjr into the make-up of good
society.
Many of these things were introduced by Birkbeck and
Flower in the very beginning at enonnous expense never re-
turned to them, and with the aid of the influence of the Eng-
lish settlers most of them came sooner than they would have
come without that aid. Such was distinctly the result in
southwestern Indiana of the permanent location of the Eng-
lish settlers in Vanderburgh county.
Mr. Walter Colyer, of Albion, himself a descendant of one
of the English settlers, was for nearly twenty years editor
of the Albion Journal, during which period he gathered much
material relating to tlie Illinois settlement, with a view to
utilizing it in various ways. During the past fifteen years,
since quitting the newspaper field, his stock of material has
increased. He has written and published a number of ar-
ticles upon the subject, a number for the Illinois Historical
Society, of which for many years he has been a director. He
has an invaluable collection of books and pamphlets on the
subject which have been of much value to the writer in ex-
tending his investigation to the Illinois settlement. He is
best qualified of any person living to answer the inquiry as
to what impress the English settlement in Edwards county
has left today upon the community in which it was located.
Answering that question put to him, he gives, in a letter, the
following relevant facts:
As uiany as seven huiidreil English iie<ii»le found a iH»rnianent settle-
ment nnd home In Edwards county In the early years of the colony, to say
nothinp of the hundro<ls of others who continued to migrate from England
to the En;:lish settlement, f<>r Hfty years afterwards.
The great majority of those people diiMl here in Edwards county, and
the day you were In .Mblon many hundre<ls of their desi-endants were on
the fairgrounds to attend the Centennial Celebration. I have no means of
knowine how ninny of those desceJidants wore pres<Mit. but it is tjuite likely
that tliey <'omiiri.>Je<l from one-third to on^-lialf of the total attendance.
Pklwnrds Is a county in which approximately nineteen-twentieths of the
farmers reside on their own farms, and farm mortgages are the exception
nnd not the rule. The delinquent tax list, published once a year, has nu-
merous times been i)rlnt«l in less than one column of .space in a local
new.si>aper. There has not be<'n a saloon in Albion, the county seat, for
more than forty-five years, and none In the entire county for that period
lijhhart: Coming of the English to Indiatia 109
with the exception uf one for a brief time at Browim Aoiiie fifteen yearg ago.
Thert' are but two" trrins of cln-nlt court In tlu' county n year, am! It ban
Huuiet 1 uies ba|i|K*iit><l court bas ailjouruttl witbout a Jury trial or tbi* return
of an indictuient. In a butidreti yearM tbere bave tM>eu but fuurti*en bunii-
ddes an<l in but tbrec InstantvH was tbe IcilliuK done for any caune but
self <h'fens«v
Kilwards is a county in wlildi practically every farmer owns a tele-
pbone. subs*«rlbeK for a Io«'al newspain-r ami reads tbe fbtcajjo. St. I>ouiM or
Rvansville dallies. It bas been eonipiit«>4l tliat Kdwards county bas a greater
number of automobiles In pro|Mirtion to |>opulatlon tban any otber <-ounty.
save one. In Illinois. Tlie jK'r capltji of wealtb Is >rreati>r and tbe standard
of Intelligence bibber tlian In most of tbe counties of soutbern Illinois.
Two-tbirds of tbe farmers bave a .substantial balance to tbelr credit in a
local bank.
Tbe «\)nnty Is famous for tbe fact tbat Its <'ounty Jail, as well as the
county alnjshouse. is often unoccupie<l for montbs at a time, and tbe Jailer
niak(>s bis living by other means. It can also be sjild with truth tliat Ed-
wards is a county In which high school, college or university graduates,
can be foimd sprlnkle^l about on alnxist every .sjH-tlou of land.
Tbo.«e who were born, renretl and trainetl In Kdwards county, have
carrltnl the Indelible impress of their early environment to other States or
countries, have In the great majority of Instances prospered and done honor
to the pbu'e of tbcir birth. Many of tbem bave become fanu><l as e<lltors.
lawyers, statesmen, doctors, mi.ssloniries. preachers, lecturers, e^lucators,
engineers, scientists, travellers, and successful men in various lines of
industry. One became tbe owner of a lariie FIJI Island and amassed a
great fortune.
Of Albion, tbe county seat of Fklwards county, tbe town founded by
George Flower a bundretl years .-igo. it may be intere.><ting to note that It
contains itractic.-illy twice as many pianos .-is dogs, and that it has more
miles of brick pavtnl streets than any otber city of its population In soutbern
Illinois. It may 1k' worth observing tbat tbe «-ity c.-ilaboose is o<X'upled
warcely once a year.
It appeals that the settlements of the Enprlish and Irish,
with a few Scotch, in the west, were destined, both in Illinios
and in Indiana, to give color and tone to the society, manners
and customs of the people with whom they mingled.
The Indiana Settlement
The facts which led IIorn!)i-ook to refuse the terms oflFered
him by the promoters of the Illinois colony and to select a
location in the southern Indiana wilderness, which imme-
diately became a nucleus for a British colony in Indiana, do
110 Indiana Magazine of History
not all lie upon the surface, or fully appear in the reasons
already given for that step.
There was something in the headship of one or two per-
sons over others, especially strong men, in the direction and
domination of the most important step, in the change of home
and country, that was tolerated in England, but wholly for-
eign to American soil and life. It appears that Birkbeck and
Flower could not agree and organized rival towns. Whatever
the cause assigned for the quarrel, it was true, then as now,
that there could be but one leader to a single movement.
The natives called Birkbeck the Czar of the prairies.
Flower, as stated, lived in the finest house west of the Alle-
gheny mountains, and in an unusual degree brought into the
far west English life and comforts at a great expense. Both
these men saw the future of the country and that empires
were to be established in the new western States.
The power of organization, leadership and money had its
limits, and the success of the farmer lay in the products of
the soil, only to be obtained by a life of hard labor. Hired
labor could not be obtained to accomplish that result. ^len
would not work for others when their work for themselves
would pay for their farm.
There was another circumstance which exerted some in-
fluence upon the members of the Indiana colony. A number
of the leaders of the emigrants in the Indiana colony were
men of Puritan faith and principles, which moulded their
lives and characters. They believed implicitly in God's provi-
dence in the affairs of men, and that moral forces rule the
world. The moral and religious supremacy of the Indiana
settlement was early one of its distinguishing features. Its
ministers and many of its leaders believed in positive and
demonstrative Christianity as opposed to mere forms. They
were not. however, subject to the criticism made against the
backwoodsmen, where public worship was very, often directed
and controlled by ignorant and uncouth native ministers.
George Flower says:-"
Rivjjls of the settlement, ejist of the uiount.iins f»et on foot every
disimrajrinK report ns to health, success, provisions, uiomls and reliRion.
"Sparks. History of Enfflish Settlement in Edicards Counti/, 166.
lylchart: Coming of the English to Iiidiana 111
Upon i\n c'lniirraiiL reiusir.g to land at Shawneetown on one
occasion, on account of the absence of chuich services in the
prairie settlement, arrany:einents were made for a shoemaker,
Mr. Crown, to read printed seimons at Wanboro, in a little
cabin, and another layman read the Episcopal service in the
public library at Albion. On the arrival of Richard Flower
in 1819, he "preached" regularly every Sunday, the dissenters
service without church organization.
The slaveholders who attacked liirkbeck, denounced him
unfairly, as an infidel. He had, in one of his letters (No. 20),
admitted writing a preacher who offered to come to his colony
to fight infidelity and bigotry saying he had not a word to say
to that offer "dissuasive or encouraging" and that bigotry "is
a disease for which I think no remedy is so effective as letting
alone." The preacher did not come. The press attacked him
for his alleged irreligion in other utterances.
The Eclectic Review of 1818 denounced as a profane jest
his motto on the title page of his letters, "Vox clamantis e
deserto." The same motto is used in a similar manner in the
Xew Pi'.rvhase, Chap. X, by a prominent Presbyterian divine
in a description of pioneer life in Indiana, with seeming
propriety.
No doubt there was unfair criticism of the "theology" of
these promoters, but the absence of ministers, with a prac-
tical rebuff to one who desired to come to the Wanboro set-
tlement, had its effect upon some of the" deeply spiritual and
religious men among the emigrants. Father Parrett and
Father Wheeler, who settled in the Indiana colony in 1819,
were educated Wosleyan ministers and for a generation ex-
ercised great influence among the people with whom religion
was a matter of the first importance.
How far the personal equation figured in the creation of
two colonies instead of one, one in Illinois and one in Indiana,
cannot now be determined. Flower's book was written at the
end of a long life, after he had ceased to be a part of it, giv-
ing many interesting details of the founding of the Illinois
colony. He outlines fully the world-wide importance of
the step. He omits to give credit to many others for the
112 ImUana Magazine of History
work of establishing the colony on a practical basis, claiming,
it is said, undue credit for himself and Birkbeck.--
Elias P. Fordham is described by Colyer as "the main
stay of the Eng-lish settlement," who was the leader in many
practical affairs of vital importance. The records of Ed-
wards county show he collected his surveyor's fees for sur-
veying Albion by a judgment in court against Richard Flower.
Not long afterwards Fordham left the settlement and re-
turned to England.
In Hartt's Centennial History of Hliyiois-'^ there is a strong
implication that James Lawrence, an English tailor, a pic-
turesque character, had been overlooked by the historians of
the Illinois settlement.
Nowhere in Flower's book is any reference made to the
British settlement in Pennsylvania, nor to the publication of
Dr. C. B. Johnson in 1819-1820, containing a prospectus of
that settlement as a preface to his Letters from the British
Settlement in Pennsylvania. In this book, Johnson followed
the line of Birkbeck's letters and attracted much attention in
England and America. Dr. Johnson, besides attacking the
promoters of the prairie colony, when in New York, later
became an active promoter of the Pennsylvania colony, urged
as containing greater advantages than a colony so far west,
either in "Illinois or Indiana." The Pennsylvania colony was
organized in 1819 at a meeting of a number of Englishmen
who had been attracted by Birkbeck's Notes and had come to
America intending to join his colony. Its short history is
interesting and sheds light on the present inquiiy.
On reaching New York. Dr. C. B. Johnson, on his way to
Illinois, met Cobbett. who placed before him the advantages
of settling east of the mountains, and the hardships, ill
health and suffering in the far west, and poisoned his mind
both against Birkbeck and George Flower personally, upon
which Johnson attacked the western settlement and person-
ally attacked George Flower and P>irkl>eck.-'-' Similar at-
tacks were made in England about the same time.
~ Adflr'^fs of W.'iltfr Colyrr nn tlie Konlhanis and La SerrfS of the English
settlement In Edwards County: in. State His. Soc. Prof. 1911, p. 4S.
»Chlc.TKo Sunday Tribune, Dec 1. 1918.
" GoorKe Flower. History of the English Settlement in Edwards County,
Illinois. 195.
lyUhart: Comin(j of the English to Indiana 113
As one of a conimilteo of five he made a contract with Dr.
Robert H. Rose for an option to buy a maximum amount of
forty thousand acres in Susquehanna county, or any smaller
amount, for an Knjrlish colony. Ro.se held one hundred thou-
sand acres in a body extending into eight townships. He
had, several years previously, advertised substantially the
same scheme of a colony and had established a settlement
of New England farmers on the tract. Although his terms
were easy, between April, ISl.*], and September, 1815, over
one hundred suits had been brought against New England
settlers unable to pay the price of three dollars per acre.
In 1818 Rose advertised still easier terms to settlers,
bought out the small improvements of the New England set-
tlers who had made small clearings and sold them to the
English, who undertook to carry on the scheme which had
been abandoned by the New Englanders. The English re-
mained only three or four years and the settlement failed.-"^
A third colony, of negroes, was established by Rose and
proved a still greater failure. Finally the location was set-
tled by Irish laborers, who were stranded in the country on
the failure in the construction of a canal.
To Dr. Johnson's volume as a preface was prefixed a pros-
pectus by the Philadelphia committee, stating with detail the
scheme of the Pennsylvania colony, and showing that the
amount of additional cost of an emigrant going to the far
west would buy 120 acres of land in the new settlement.
The book urged the unhealthy conditions in Indiana and Illi-
nois, danger from Indians in case of war, the absence of
markets, the privations and extreme hardships from which
a number of disappointed emigrants had turned back, and
presented the many advantages of markets and location so
near to New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.-" It showed
that success by the individual emigrant could be had in north-
eastern Penn.sylvania easier and with less privations than in
••Emily C. Blitckman, History of Suaquehanna County, Penn., 453. Stocker,
Suaquehanna County Centennial History, 602
"C. B. Johnson, Letters from the British Settlement in Pennsylvania, 1819,
Plilla. & I^jnJon.
114 Indiana Magazine of History
the west, which was probably true, with land equally produc-
tive. But it was a settlement in the wilderness where success
demanded a life of sacrifice and hard labor which the settlers
were unwillinp to devote and from which escape was veiy
easy.
Dr. Johnson was an educated man who seemed honest in
his account, which is a valuable record and description
of details of American backwoods life of that time, both east
and west of the mountains.
F>irkbeck*s Notes and Letters give an optimistic, yet sub-
stantially truthful account of the prospects of an English
settler in the far west.
Dr. Johnson's Letters present all of the facts against
them by a competitor. After three or four years he moved
to Binghamton, New York, where he died in 1845 at the age
of 65. Of him, the historian of the Pennsylvania settle-
ment say.s:
More thiin one KiiRlish emigrant beiiioaneil tbe day he read Johtunon's
Lcttertt, and hea|)«l upon the author accusations born of »lisai>iiointment.
"Too rose coh>re<l.'" his (lescri|)tions may have been: but so. also, were the
notions (if town-l)r<il |>eople resi)e<'tin>r their own caiiacity to endure the
inevitalile ills attendant upon pioneer life.32
The Pennsylvania settlement had underlying it the ele-
ment of speculation by the original proprietor of the land,
not dissimilar to that of Birkbeck's and Flower's schemes,
and the land was hilly and it seems not very productive.
Hornbrook, Ingle, Maidlow and other leaders of the Indiana
colony were men of strong character who preferred entire
independence of promoters. They issued no prospectus, pub-
lished no advertisements. All settlers and land owners
bought from the government and were on perfect equality.
They realized the necessities of their position and devoted
their lives to their work.
The reflected light from the literature and history of the
Pennsylvania. Indiana and Illinois settlement shows in a
measure the obstacles which deterred the more timid and less
resolute. These obstacles were far greater in the wilderness
"Blackmail, History of Suaquehanna Countv. Penn., 645.
lyU'hart: Coming of the English to Indiana 115
of the far west than those east of the mountiiins to which the
Pennsylvania colony succumbed.
Of the Enjrlish settlement in Indiana and its relative im-
portance in 1820, John Woods, who lived two years in the
Illinois prairie settlement, and was not biased against the
Indiana colony, says:-'-'
TUi'iv in an Kiii:llsli s«^ttU>iiu>nt in IihUmiiii iil)out ten miles l)aek of
Evjinsvllle, I liave lie.inl, better \vatero<l, and nearer markets than we;
but it is in the uikkIs and tlie land is inferior to ours. Tliis is tlie arcnunt
I have rwelve<i of it. hut I kimw iiotliinj; oidy from tlie rei)f)rt of those
who have iio Interest in either settlement.
I have no |>ersonal knowledjre of Mr. Hornhrook or Mr. Maldlow. the
beads of tliat settlement ; and sliould any irtsou see my account of thi.s
part of the country and come to America. I would advi.se him to see both
settlements before he ti.xed in either.
Faux's travels west of the Alleghenies. a round trip of
over 1.600 miles, were made to visit an old friend, John Ingle,
of Saundersville, upon a compact made between him and
John Ingle, of Somersham, who agreed to look after Faux's
affairs during his absence, if the latter would visit his son in
America. Faux spent five weeks in John Ingle's cabin, the
picture of which is the frontispiece of his book.
With John Ingle, he visited New Harmony and Albion
and Wanboro and was by Ingle introduced to George Flower
and Birkbeck. Faux talked with both these men, as well as
the third party connected with their (juarrel. and his ap-
parently confidential conversations with all of them are pub-
lished by him, though of no public interest.
Faux's descriptions are without any literary merit, and
so described in the English leviews of the time, and are only
valuable as a record of facts which he saw, as he was doubt-
less honest. His sensibilities were so shocked by the sim-
plicity, .sacrifices and hardships of a life in the wilderness,
of men and women raised in the old country, with its con-
veniences and comforts, that he was unable to describe them
in anything but terms of impatience and coarse abuse.
It should be said that when he visited the settlement in
• Woo.lw, KngUah I'rairie, Z'o\ , Tliwalti-8. Early Weatern Travcla, X, 3J1.
116 Indiana Magazine of History
November, 1S19, it was in its infancy, so to speak, in the
agonies of birth, and things were at their worst. In a short
time many of the conditions I>aux describes improved and
most of his dire predictions were never venfied. His narra-
tion deals with events of trilling importance in the daily life
of the people without sense of propriety or proportions of
most of them. The privacy of the lives of the people was no
shield from his attacks. The Saundersville settlement, with
its people and its surroundings, occupies a greater portion of
the diar>' of which his volume is composed than any other
single subject in the book. It is particularly valuable, how-
ever, as it is the only published record of the early time,
other than Woods' reference above set ont, in which any
information whatever is given of the settlement in Indiana.
George Flower, who wrote his book forty years later,
mentions Honibrook, Ingle and Maidlow. He knew them
all well, and knew that they all had intended to join his set-
tlement, that Ingle came over in his ship with him, and that
Honibrook was the father of the Indiana settlement, so
called by Woods and Faux, and he had ground to believe that
Hornbrook did not like him. He goes out of his way, and of
the facts, to avoid mentioning the Indiana colony, nowhere
mentioned in his book, when in speaking only once of Horn-
brook, he says: 3*
It wns In ISIS or 1S10 that Mr. Hornlmink of Devizes. Devonshire,
calletl on me. as he eanie to see the settlement ; but having made previous
decision to remain at IMpeon Creek, Imliana. where EvansviUe now stands.
For the latter statement no foundation existed. Horn-
brook located at once where he remained, as already stated.
The British view of the importance of the emigration
movement so vividly described in Birkbeck's Notes is thus
given in the Edinburgh Rcvicic:^-'
The si»o<tn<'le jiresontwl hy America dnrinfr tlie lust tiiirty or forty
years — ever since her emnncipation l)epan to pro<luce its full effect, and
since she fairly entered the lists as an indei>endent nation with a com-
pletely popular povemment. has been, beyond everything formerly known
»« Hxatorv of the English Settlement in Edwards County, 162.
"Bdlnburgh Relieve, June, 1818, XXX 121.
Iglehart: Coming of the English to Indiana 117
In the lilKtory of maukiud. luiiKisiut: and lustriu-tiviv In order to couteiu-
plate Its woiulen* wltb coiuplett' advantuKe. an obnerviT ought to Lave
vlsltetl the New World twice lu the course of a few yearn. A sIhkIo view
Is liisullU-leiit to exhibit this proKress lu the States already settleil ; for
there, ijuk-kly as the chauges are k«)Iiik on, the prt»c-es« of creatWui Is uot
actually seen at oiR*e, or dlsclosetl, as It were, to the eye; some Interval
of time must l>e allowed, and the eomiMirlson then shows the extent of the
wonderful ehange. Hut the ('Xtraordlnary state of things lu the western
part of the I'lilon. <levelo|H.nl by Mr. Hlrkbei-k, shows us the process both
of colonization and increase at one glance. We see exjwsed to the naked
ej*e, the whole mystery of the generation as well as the growth of nations;
w« at once behold In what manner the settled parts of America are Increas-
ing with unparalleltHl rajiidity; and how new and extensive communities
are daily create*! in the plains and the forests of the west, by the super-
fluous iM)pulation of the eastern settlements. Those settlements assume
a novel and a striking asitei-t.
Predicting the future of the settlements in Illinois and
Indiana, the Review adds:
A frugal and Industrious people here established is morally certain of
rising to the rank of a great state in the course of a few generations.
In closing the article, the Review addsi^s
It Is lmi)ossible to close this Interesting volume, without casting our
eyes ui>on the man-elous empire of which Mr. Blrkbeck paints the growth
in colours far more .striking than any heretofore used In portraying It.
Where is this prodigious increase of numbers, this vast extension of do-
minion to end? What bounds has nature .set to the progress of this mighty
nation? Let our jealou.sy burn as it may, let our intolerance of America
be as unreasonably violent as we please; still It Is plain, that she Is a
power In si)lte of us, rapidly rising to supremacy; or. at least, that each
year so mightily augments her strength, as to overtake, by a most sensible
distance, even the most formidable of her comiK?tltors.
George Flower, who had l>een the guest of Thomas Jef-
ferson the previous winter, wrote the latter, asking his aid
in the effort to get an act of congress for the purchase of
40.000 acres in one body. Mr. Jefferson answered the letter,
promising his aid.-'"
Not on the selfish principle of Increasing our population at the exinjnse
of other nations, for the additions are but as a drop In a bucket to those
"Edinburgh Review, XXX. 137.
•'George l•^owe^. Engliah Settlement in Edwards Countu, 178.
118 Indiana Ma(jazine of Histoid
by n.ittiral iirocroatlon. but to oonso<Tnte ii sjinctnarj- for those whom the
inisnilf of Kuropo iiuiy compel to s(H'k happiuoss In other climes, this refuge,
once known, will iinxhue reaction, even to those there, by warninjj their
task-masters that when tlic evils of Kp>-ptian ojipression become heavier
than those of abamlonment of country, another Cannan Is oi)oned. where
their snbjei'ts will be r(H'eiv«^1 as brothers jind se<urr*l ft"um like op])re»-
NJnn l>y a iwirticipatlon in the riirhts of self-frovernment.
After eloquently setting forth the advantages and bless-
ings of good government, a motive, he continues in his letter:
You have set your country a Kood exam])le, by showing them a prac-
ticable mode (^f rediKiuK their rulers to the necessity of beoominp more
wise, more moderate, and more honest, .'ind I sincerely pray that the exam-
ple may work for the beuetit of those who cannot follow It, us it will for
your own.
Organization of Local Government
The organization of county and township government in
Vanderburgh county began in 1818, contemporaneously with
the coming of the British emigrants. These were not treated
as foreigners and regarded themselves a part of the body of
the county, owners of the soil and ready to take an active
part in all civic duties. While members of the settlement in
the beginning were located very closely together, with Saun-
dersville as the village center, it was never a separate com-
muntiy, so far as sympathies with American ideals and sur-
roundings were concerned.
Treating the members of the British settlement as a
separate source of influence, with ideals and culture trans-
planted from the old world into the wilderness of the new,
there may be said to have been at the beginning two other
classes of people in Vanderburgh county, the influence of
which may be for the time separately traced. These were
best represented by the southern backwoodsmen and their
leaders, men of strong personality, and a few men fiom New
England, New York and other Atlantic coast States.
At this period in the union of all these elements, was the
beginning of a new and composite social and political order
in this locality, less homogeneous in some respects than its
surroundings, including the population south of the river,
but more cosmopolitan as the result of such a union.
Ifjhhai't: Coming of the English to Indiana 119
Warrick county had been the parent county, which from
1814 to 1818 had furnished local government in a most
primitive manner, over large territory-, mostly a wilderness.
Previous to that time, Vincennes, the territorial county seat
of Knox county, had been the nearest seat of justice, too far
distant to be of much service to the few scattered settler;.
By an unwritten law, the right of self-defense and the doc-
trine of immediate personal responsibility for a violation of
individual rights, among the natives, maintained order, sutli-
cient for the time.
Vincennes was the capital of the territory and the mother
city of the northwest during this period. Princeton was in-
corporated in 1814 and was a thriving village described by
Faux in 1819-'^ as containing 105 houses, 19 streets, one
prison and one meeting house. Henderson, Kentucky, then
known as Red Banks, was near the western boundary of im-
migration in Kentucky in 1803 and earlier, and was early an
organized community of commercial influence, with a church
and school, including an excellent Female Seminary. In this
town the first Evansville merchants bought much of their
stocks. The route of travel across the river from Kentucky
into Indiana through Vanderburgh county, was over the
ferry at the mouth of Green river, the ferry opposite
Evansville, and the ferry at Red Banks, between which point
and Vincennes there was considerable travel. In low water
the Indian trail crossed the Ohio river at a ford already
described.
In the first decade of the last centuiy, the immigrants
from Kentucky, who were practical woodsmen and familiar
with the nature of the soil, passed by the high land of central
and north Vanderburgh county, which was not so produc-
tive as the lands in Gib.son and Posey counties. A majority
of these immigrants from Kentucky settled in what later be-
came Gibson county on the north, in preference to the locality
of Vanderburgh county.
Before the English came, there were already upon the
ground several leading men born in England, who had omi-
*» ThvoiteB Early WtBtem Travels, XI, 224.
120 Indiana Magazine of History
grated tx) the Atlantic coast States, and who had come west-
ward with the tide of emijrration through Virginia and Ken-
tucky into Indiana. Samuel Scott, Everton Kennerly,
Richard Carlisle, the Prichetts and some of the Fairchilds
though of English birth, were as distinctly American as were
any of the natives among whom they intermingled.
These men immediately identified themselves with mem-
bers of the English settlement, and on the other hand, the
latter became identified with all matters of public interest
equally with the natives. The act of the legislature creating
Vanderburgh county named the house of Samuel Scott — the
center of the settlement to be — as the place of meeting of the
commissioners named in the act, to select the county seat,
and Evansville was thus chosen.
Richard Carlisle had been a justice of peace in Warrick,
before Vanderburgh county was formed. He was a black-
smith, and the only man, shown by the records, who held his
own in personal encounter with the turbulent Hugh McGary,
the younger.
Everton Kennedy, like Carlisle, of English birth, a
brother-in-law of Samuel Scott, was a natudal leader and one
of the most active and useful public men in the township,
town and county for many years.
Elisha Harrison, a second cousin of William Henry Har-
rison, foiTner territorial governor of Indiana, and later Pres-
ident of the United States, lived, when the county was
formed, on a farm west of Samuel Scott, and represented
Warrick county in the legislature when Vanderburgh was
created, when he moved to Evansville. He was a native, of
Virginia Revolutionar\^ stock, and the first state senator
elected from Vanderburgh county. He was an able man. -^^
many excellent traits, public spirited, well educated and until
his death in 1825 or 1826, was in the front of every public
movement, and freely invested his fortune in public enter-
prises, more perhaps than any man of his time. He estab-
lished and maintained the Evansville Weekly Gazette at a
loss for about four and one-half years. ^" With a mechanic
■The Evajisvllle Gazette had a contract for publishing the laws of conffreae.
and the state department saved about three and one-half years Issue of the paper.
Iglehai-t: Cominy of the Englitfh to Indiana 121
as a partner, he built the first courthouse in the county. The
owner of the ferry on the Ohio at Evansville was indicted for
neglect of this pubUc duty. Harrison bought his equipment,
erected or purchased a tavern on a Water street lot, took out
a license for the ferry in his own name and maintained it
opposite "Chutes" Tavern. When salt works were the most
desirable addition to the town then hoped for, Harrison, at
much expense, with his partner in general merchandise,
James W. Jones, sank a well on Pigeon creek and found salt
water at 463 feet, which event was announced with great ex-
pectations, and furnished the occasion for a short but valu-
able sketch of Evansville in 1824.^" He was brigadier gen-
eral in the militia.^'
RatlifF Boone, born in Georgia, a grandson of Israel
Boone, brother of Daniel Boone, lived in Boonville, Warrick
county, was lieutenant governor and governor of Indiana,
and for many years congressman of this district.
Robert M. Evans, a man of much prominence, and James
W. Jones, both of Princeton, came to Evansville about 1819.
Evans came to Knox county in 1805. When Gibson county
was organized in 1814 he became and remained county clerk
for over four years. Col. William M. Cockrum, whose father
lived a few miles east of Evans, says he was during that time
the leading man in the county and managed its business
affairs. ^-
David Hart, son of one of the Hart brothers, of Richard
Henderson & Co., in pioneer Kentucky, was first circuit judge
of Vanderburgh county, and lived in Princeton.
James R. E. Goodlett, born in Virginia, was for more
than ten years his successor as circuit judge, and lived in
Vanderburgh county.
Hugh McGary, the elder, with his family came out of
North Carolina with Daniel Boone in 1775, was an Indian
now In thf ConKrenHl<in:iI I.i>)rary, tlie only copy in txistence. It has escaped Uie
historian.
•' Kvanifvine Cdzitti, Sept. 9, 1824.
"/d.. May 7. 1823.
" Ex-Governor Jowph Imhv Rive« to Evans and RatlifT Boone a place of
prominence amons the men of the State. History of Vanderburgh Countj/ (B.
ft F.). 102.
122 Indiana Maf/azinc of HLstonj
fighter of undisputed bravery, and a figure of the heroic age
in the west. In his old age, he settled in Knox county about
1804 and died there in 1806 near where Princeton was later
located. The McGarys lived in that locality when in 1812
Hugh McGray, the younger, entered fractional section 30,
upon which Evansville was later located. As such original
proprietor he became a local celebrity in Evansville, concern-
ing whom a number of historical facts exist in the records,
some of which have been incorrectly recorded in local history.
James W. Jones was from Kentucky and was clerk of
Vanderburgh county for many years and was the head of a
family of influence. His son, James Gerard Jones, was first
mayor of the city of Evansville and in 1859 was attorney
general of Indiana. He was probably related to John G.
Jones, the first chairman of the Committee of Safety in the
county of Kentucky, before it became a state. John G. Jones
was murdered by Indians December 25. 1776. John G. Jones
was succeeded as such chairman by Hugh McGary, the elder,
upon whom the women and children in Kentucky much de-
ponded for safety in the Indian wars. Jones. Evans and
McGary platted Evansville as it was permanently located
in 1817.
Joseph Lane,'- born in Kentucky, became a citizen of
\'anderburgh county when his farm on two sides was made
the lino between that county and Warrick. Boone legislated
Lane out of his county, as the latter was a man of great pop-
ularity. This fact accounts for the irregular eastern line of
Vanderburgh county.^' He defeated Evans in the race for
the legislature in Vanderburgh county, of which Evans gives
an amusing explanation in the Evansville Gazette. Lane be-
came governor of and United States senator from Oregon
and was an unsuccessful candidate before the people of the
Ignited States on the Breckenridge and Lane Presidential
ticket in 1860.
General Washington Johnston, the earliest member of the
Vincennes bar, came there from Virginia in 1792. He was
♦» An adequate sketch of Gernral Joseph Lane is found In Woolen's Sketchet
of F.arl]f Indiana Lenders.
♦♦ Warrick and Its Prominent People, Fortune. 73. note.
Iglehart: Coming of the English to Indiana 123
before the public in many forms during his life.^' He was
a revolutionary soldier.^" In 18iy when the panic affected
the country so that the jcniin rotted in the fields and \'in-
cennes lost one-half of its population^", Johnston came to
In 18^4 half tlu* houma In Kvunsvlllc weru viiouit. mild to have been the
n-Bult uf slokmtui In the locality, but It In {iruhablu the panic 8till exlatlng had
much to do with It. AuioblDunipliv i)f J(i.>*ph Taiklniitun. ay.
Evansville, where he lived not over a year, but during 1819,
the record shows that he was deputy county clerk. He specu-
lated in land in all the neighboring counties, as their deed
records show, but he returned to Vincennes.
George \V. Lindsay, another attorney of the Vincennes
bar, came at the same time with Johnston, was prosecuting
attorney of Vanderburgh county, one term of court in 1819.
He became the first probate judge in Vanderburgh county
in 1829, served many years, and died here. His wife and
two daughters moved to Posey county.
Levi Igleheart, Sr., from Tidewater, Maryland, settled in
Kentucky in 1815. where his sons, Asa and Levi, Jr., were
born and in 1823 he settled in Warrick county, Indiana, on
the eastern boundary of the English settlement, where his
son William was born; near this point, then and later, a
dozen English families including the Lockyears, settled.
Two of his sons married daughters and one a niece of John
Ingle, of Saundersville, all granddaughters of John Ingle, of
Somersham. One of his daughters married Mark Wheeler,
and one John Erskine.
These men were all from Kentucky or came from Vir-
ginia or more southerly states through Kentucky. They w^ere
chief among the native leaders of the earliest settlers with
whom the English emigrants mingled upon their arrival ( r
soon afterwards. There were a number of other intelligen:,
successful and influential people from the south and east, as
well as from Great Britain, who lived in and near Evansville
during this period, but it is beyond the scope of th»s aitidr
to write a history of early Evansville, or even to furnish a
** I»uiin. History of Indiana. 3.15.
«• /nd(«Fia Mdffatine of Hintori/, Juno, 19H, p. 54.
•' Eaan-y. HIatori/ of Indiana, Vol. 1. p. 280 and note.
124 Imliaufi Magazine of HLstonj
list of the names of its leading citizens. The scattered set-
tlers in the counties bordering on the north side of the Ohio
river were chielly from the south and brought with ihem
southern ideals. These leaders from the south represented
the great body of the scattered backwoodsmen when the Eng-
lish came, who, with those from New York and New Eng-
land and the leaders of the British settlement,
wrrc nil stern iiicii with i;iii]iiri's in tlu'ir lirains.
The definite and prompt protection of individual rights,
under the enforcement of law, had been uncertain in the
backwoods of the west. Public opinion sometimes justified
methods in private life, which in the older communities were
regarded as lawless, and turbulent spirits, under the influ-
ence of liquor, sometimes defied the law^
Complaint was made by Faux, Fearon and other travel-
ers, as well as by Cobbett and by Dr. Johnson (both of whom
were biased in their judgments), in the war of pamphlets be-
tween the British colonies east and west of the Alleghenies,
that such a condition existed in this section at the time of
which we write. In speaking of this subject. Dr. Johnson,
who had never been west of the mountains, wrote :*^
I liiid fdrnu"*! :in erroneous oitinion of a wotMlsnian. I e.\i>ec'to<l to find
riide manners; l)nt the jieople here liehave with preat oivility and proprii^ty.
I have not heard a sinjile instance of i)rofane lanpnape. or inde<ent ex-
pression, in thi.s settlement. An ;iir of comfort i)ervades the habitations
of the humblest kind : and in general, the demeanour of the wife shows
her to h.ive her full sh:ire of the family control. These pc^iple iire almost all
from the New Knul.ind St.ites; t»y which name is desijinattHl the s<Htion
of country north and enst of New York, which has always been remarked
for the enterpri.se and good moral conduct of Its citizens. To the inhab-
itants of this se<tion of the rnit<><l States, who sire also distlneiilsheil by
their slirewdness, the term Yankee is ajiplitMl; and not. as it is underst(HKl
In Knpl.'ind. to all the States. A Yankee, therefore, means a native of New
Knpland. The civility of disfiosition in which they are e<lucnte<l at home,
is taken abroad with fhenr. and they are said to form a class of settlers
far sufH>rior to those who endprate from the southern States to the western
wilderness.
Flower intimates that Johnson was a land speculator and
the history of the Pennsylvania settlement adds color to that
"C. B. Johnson. M P. Letters from the Brittah Settlement in Penn., 111.
lylthai-t: Cuming of the English to Indiana 125
suspicion. The latter had not lived among the woodsmen
and allowance should be made for a strong bias against the
far west.
If the proper allowance be made for the lapse of time, re-
quired in the successive waves of emigration from the At-
lantic coast frontier to the frontier in the wilderness along
the Ohio and the Wabash rivers in 1818, it will appear that
the men on the frontier first mentioned, in 1750 and later,
had much the same "boisterous tastes and dangerous amuse-
ments of frontiersmen" as those on the latter "from the
south," as Johnson reports, quoting the very guarded admis-
sion of a distinguished New England Historian.^"
The North Atlantic coast States had their share of bond
servants and redemptioners as well as the southern States.'"
As late as 1820, the rabid anti-American reviews in England
were quoting Dr. Johnson's remark "that the Americans are
a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we
allow them short or hanging.""*'
The effect and necessities of the institution of slavery had
prevented the emigration of independent foreign labor into
the south to any considerable extent. The southern people
were a homogeneous people and so remained. The English
people were hostile to slavery. Those emigrants who pre-
ferred slave labor passed on to Missouri, in large numbers.
The institution of slavery and its necessities in molding the
law, public opinion, and customs of the people, were objec-
tionable to anti-slavery Englishmen and to anti-slavery peo-
ple in America.
In fact, the original location for the English settlement,
later made in the Illinois prairie, by Birkl^eck and Flower,
of which the Indiana settlement was a part would probably
have been in Virginia, but for the existence of slavery in
that State. George Flower spent his first winter with
Thomas Jefferson (as a distinguished guest) at his home in
••Albert Bushnell Hart. Formution of the rnion, 18.
*• John R. CommonB. Induatrtul Utatory of the U. 8., 42. Commons estimates
that prohiibly on<-half of all the liimiltrrants landcil In th<* colonial p<'rloil as
lnd<-ntun-<l wrvantn. The Plymouth settli-rs broiijcht with them "borul servants."
Moorf's Industrial History of the American People, 109
*i Electic Re\-ifu\ .May. 1820. 401.
126 huliayic Magazine of History
Virginia, and seriously considered establishinj^ his colony
there. Birkbeck vetoed the plan on account of slaver>'.''-
On the north side of the Ohio river, new conditions ex-
isted. A fierce struggle for the control of Indiana by slave
owners, from the time of estal)lis]iment of the territory until
the admission of the State in 1816, for a while practically
maintained slaveiy in form in the territory'-' ; but it was for-
bidden on the admission of the State to the Union.
It cannot be denied that among the intellectual and lead-
ing men in this community of that time, who came from
Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina, the English and
New England, idea of maintenance of public order by law,
without the doctrine of personal responsibility for a personal
alfront. did not have always the fullest support.
Faux himself, indulging in one of his inconsistent moods,
gave a very plausible reason why fear of instant punishment
for an insult was often a preventive more effective than the
fear of possible punishment by law in the distant -future.
He also gave an excuse for carrying side-arms in Kentucky,
as necessary to protection of law-abiding citizens from the
gouging and nose-biting rowdies, when in liquor. Judge
David Hart resigned as judge soon after his election or ap-
pointment, on account of a challenge he had given.' ' Judge
J. R. E. Goodlett. of the circuit court, was indicted by the
grand jur>' for provoke and assault in drawing a sword cane.
His two associate judges, both laymen, quashed the indict-
ment on the ground, as the record shows, that the law on
which the indictment was based was unnmstitntional.
While on the bench he had a newspaper controversy with
Robert M. Evans, started by the latter, resulting in recrimi-
nations, and Colonel Cockrum is authority for the statement
that a duel to the death i)etween them was avoided only by
the severest measures of mutual friends. After Goodlett
retired from the bench, he assaulted Judge Samuel Hall, his
successor, while presiding in court on the bench and was im-
"Thwaitf, Fnrly Wrstrru Trnxris. XI. 240.
*• Dunn, History of Indiana, Chaptfrs VI and IX.
**Thwalte. Earlv Weatern Travels, XI. 216.
Iglehart: Coming of the English to Indiana 127
prisoned for contenij)!. The members of the bar of the cir-
cuit published u statement condemning him.'"'
Robert M. Evans, Klisha Harrison, Hugh McGary and
all of his brothers, State Senator, laU^-r Governor liatlifF
Boone, and others were indicted and tried for misdemeanors,
generally assault and battery. Some well-known persons
were indicted for more serious offenses. I)oul)tless it was
true that resort was had to the grand jury in a number of
cases then, which to us now seem trivial. Probal)ly the ex-
cuses for sucii very strict and frequent use of the law existed
in the fact that there was in the beginning a vicious, lawless
and dangerous element in the lower classes, which without
the fear of the law, stopped at nothing. It did not hesitate
to defy the law at the beginning, and until the supremacy of
the law was fully vindicated, which , as will appear, was soon
done. It needs no argument to make clear that even the law-
less element of that period, as they appear to us now, became
such in part at least, as the result of the great sarcifice made
by them and their ancestors in performing their work, of
conquering and holding the land west of the mountains from
the Indians. For several generations they had been sentinels
on the border of civilization. But for this work also, in occu-
pying the land conquered by George Rogers Clark, the treaty
between Great Britain and the Colonies at the close of the
Revolutionary war would have left the territory north of the
Ohio river part of Canada, as England then regarded it.'"'
The historian, after describing the rugged frontiersmen
and backwoodsmen of the "up country," says:
Had the settloment of Kentucky (h'pt'uiUil on the achievement of Tide-
water Virginians, it would be at this moment a lilnKdoui of rc^l Indians and
a pasture for wild buCFaloes.'-'
But the issue was now to be settled in the new State of
Indiana, between law and order on the one hand and lawless-
ness on the other. John Law, a young lawyer of Vincennes,
a native of Connecticut, had just begun the practice of law in
** History of Potey County (ChlwUfO. 1SS6), 432. *
•«0«(jrK.' KllUitt Howard, I'rrHminarita of the Revolution, 241. C. H. Van
Tyne. The Av\cric<in Utvulution, 2'\-2Hi.
•'Cotterlll, History of Pioneer Kentucky. 26.
128 hidiana Magazine of Histoi^y
Vincennes, when he was appointed prosecuting attorney for
Vanderburgh county. He served as the first prosecutor, be-
ginning with the March term, 1818, and continued for more
than two years, wlien he resigned. He was an ellicient prose-
cutor, as the records which have been preserved show, but
the order lx)ok records of the circuit court of the county for
1818 and 1819 are not preserved.'^ Some years later he
moved to Evansville.
For many years following John Law as prosecutor, Amos
Clark was the prosecuting attorney. He came from New
York State when first Evansville was made the county seat.
He was an educated man and a very able laNsyer. He was
upon one side or the other of practically all of the cases, and
sole attorney in veiy many cases which did not require ad-
verse representation of counsel in court. He was a man of
high moral character, had high ideals, and was fearless in
the administration of the law. He prosecuted some of the
leading men of the community and their relatives, as already
stated. Several men of prominence in the beginning of
Evansville were lawless spirits and attempted to defy the
law and public opinion. With these men Amos Clark meas-
ured, and within four or five years the records show he had
vindicated the law and thoroughly broken up all attempts to
defy it. The community owes more to Amos Clark than is
known.
Charles I. Battell, a ^Massachusetts la\\yer, was for a
short time the prosecuting attoniey, and later, in the 30's,
judge of the circuit court. Alanson Warner was from Con-
necticut, was the second man elected to the office of sheriff
and was a tactful, useful, and influential man in the com-
munity for a generation.''
In this enforcement of the law, the grand juries were the
source of power, and much of the time the leading and domi-
nating men upon the grand jury were from the British set-
" Life of John Laxc. by Charles Denby. Indiana Historical Soc. Pub V I
No. 7.
•• His shrewd character may b*- ee^n In an advertisement m the Gazette
warning tax payers to pay, but offering to take produce at his tavern from
farmers as credit on their taxes — a real accommodation to the people In an
almost moneyless age. Evansville Qazette. May 31, 1824.
Igkhart: Coming of the Englu^^h to Indiana 129
tlement, and at all times there were representatives of that
settlement upon the jrrand jury. In like manner this ele-
ment was prominent in the trial of cases on the rejfular panel
of the jury of the court, which tried men indicted for of-
fenses against the law. In matters of public opinion in sup-
port of the law, there were a numlx?r of men in the settle-
ment who were very influential and of great value in sup-
porting the administration of justice. Particularly among
these were Robert Parrett and Joseph Wheeler, ministers of
the gospel, whose careers formed a verj- important part of
the development of this community for a period of thirty
years.
The Early Hoosiers
It may be interesting at this point to speak of the body of
Hoosier settlers, with whom the English came in contact,
who were not so prominent as the leaders mentioned. For
the reason already given, the rich country around where
Princeton is now located had been settled a number of years
earlier than Vanderburgh county. Upon the coming of the
English. Princeton, then two years old, was chosen as head-
quarters by Birkbeck, Flower and Fordham, where they
lived before the settlement in the prairie in Illinois was pre-
pared for them. All of these persons frequently mention
Princeton and its people.
John Ingle, one of the leaders of the Indiana colony, lived
one season in Princeton before coming to the Saundersville
settlement. So the travelers of the time, who all visited New
Harmony, usually came or went by Princeton and Vincennes,
on account of good accommodations for travelers in roads
and taverns and Princeton is frequently mentioned in the
literature of the time. The subsequent historj' of Princeton
and Gibson county establishes the fact that the body of the
people of this town were a fair type of the people in the
countr>', in no substantial degree different, and were of the
same origin, already referred to. They were a fair type of
Hoosier pioneers, who located in Indiana from 1801 to 1818.«o
•• Autobioffraphu of Rev. Joseph Tarkinfftoii. A ropresontativo native pioru'er,
bom In 1800 In Ti-nnesaee, of poor but rcaptctablo North Carolina parentage.
VAO In/fia)ia Mayazine of History
The fairest description of the common people of southern
Indiana in 1817 and 1818, which we have seen, was written
by Morris Birkbeck, who sought to discover all that was good
in them, but who stated both sides in his descriptions. In the
article alieady cited, from the t^dinburgh Review of June,
1818, so fully reviewing Birkbeck's Notes on Ameinca, oc-
curs the following:'''
The nipldity with whidi new s<4tlpnu>iils ,in> foniuMl in this luauner, is
illustriitCMl ii.v Mr. I5irl<ln><k's wiinlc Itnnii; luit iinthiiiK toiKls more cleiiriy
to siidw if tliiui till' st:it«' tif s4Mi(>ty \vlii( li lie foiiiid at rriiii'i'fon, where be
tool; up iiis alKide while iiis iaml was jtreiiarinK t<» receive him. Tliis is a
small town, plactnl at the further iiniit of In<li:ina. and founded only two
years before our author's arrival. It containwl fifty houses; was the
county town t)f the district: and contaiiUNl (sjiys Mr. H) as many "well
lufornitHl. >;ent(H*l people, in pntiK>rtion ti> the lunnhor of inhabitants, as
any county town I am acquainted with." "I thinit." he adds, "there are
half as many individuals who are entitled to that distinction as there are
hous«'s: .ind not one decidedly vicious character, nor one that Is not able
and wiUins to maintain himself."
His notes and letters contain many other descriptions of
the plain people. One of the best descriptions of the country
and the people in Indiana and Ohio at a period earlier than
that described by Birkbeck is found in the Travels of John
Bradbun.' in 1809-1811, published by him in 1819, with com-
ments of that later time, reviewing and discriminating un-
friendly criticism of travelers who rapidly passed through
the county, similar to those already mentioned. In regard
to the manners of the people west of the Alleghenies. he says,
on account of the mixture of so many races and elements, it
would be absurd to expect that a general character could
then be formed, or that it would be for many years to come.
After referring to the entire absence of feeling existing l^e-
came with his p.arent8 In 181.5 to P.itok.o. In Gibson county, Indiana, to live in a.
frw t'-rrltory. I>fiter the family settled In Monroo county. Ho was converted in
that county, sprnt n short time In the Indlan.a Semlnarj- under H.ill, princlrwl,
was persuaded by the circuit riders to enter the Methodist ministry and later
travelled the Vevay circuit In which EjfKloston lived. He lived over seventy-five
years In Indiana. His simple account of pioneer life as real history Is worth
more than the novels of any writer of fiction, either dialectic, or other^^'lse. He
was the father of the lato John S Tarklnjfton. n. prominent citizen of Indianapolis,
and Kmndfather of Booth Tarkinpton, the author.
« Edinburgh Review, XXX. 136.
IgU'hart: Cominy of the English to Imiiana 131
tween classes, as in Europe, and the eciuality in natural
rights asserted by and conceded to the luimblest citizen,
Bradbury says;"-
TniVfUTs from Kuniju*. in passiiif: throuKb tin* western country or
indeeil any jmrt ot the I'nitwl Stiites, ouKht to be previously iicquaiiited
with this part of the Anierlcun ehanuter. ami more particularly if tliey
have iM-t'ii in the hahlt of freatlng with conteiupt. or irritating with aliuse,
thos*' whom awidental chvumstances may liave plafe<l In a situation to
administer to their wants. I^t no one here ln<lulne himself In abuslUK the
waiter or hostler ;it tiic inn: tii;it waiter or hostler Is probably a citi-
zen, and does not, nor can he, comcive that :i situation in which he dis-
charges a duty to society, not In itself dishonorable, should subject him to
Insult, but this ftH'linp, so far as I have exi)erlenced. Is entirely defensive.
1 have travelled uear ten thousiind ndles in the United States and
never received the least incivility or .iflfront.
There is nothing: in Birkbeck's description of the people
of Princeton with whom he and Flower and Fordham, with
their families, mingled, when they lived there, inconsistent
with the descriptions of Edward Eggleston's novel. The
Hoosiir School Master, nor those of Baynard Rush Hall in
the New Purchase. The difference is in the view point.
Consistent with all Birkbeck says, had he been searching
for material for a dialect story of low Hoosier life, he would
probably have found it in Princeton.
This was the purpose of Eggleston, who found what he
sought.'-' As a correct description of Hoosier dialect in low
life, the writer can testify that practically all of his dialect
phrases and words are true to life and as such a dialect study
the work is a classic. But while the author never made any
claim that the book contains any description of the better
class of Hoosiers who lived in southern Indiana at the begin-
ning of the State, or the time of which he writes, he fails to
guard that cla.ss against the opinion so generally formed out
of the State that he was de.scribing its people.
Dr. F^ggleston knew the interpretation the literary world
put upon the Hoosier School Master, as a portrayal of early
Hoosier life. He found it necessary to vindicate his own
"T»iwalt<i!, Eurhj »'»-«f«rn travrlx, V. 'I'^'l.
" K(lwar<l EKKlMiton, llooaier Schoulm<utfr, An to dialect In Southern In-
diana, «K'<' alHO The Uouaiera, by Meredith Nicholson, 4 5.
132 Imfiaua Magazine of Hist&ry
origin from the suspicion of common birth and low associa-
tions.'-^ In 1890 he pubHshed an autobiographical sketch, a
delightful article, the chief purpose of which seems to be to
clear his memory and that of his ancestors.®^
Among the many of such unfriendly interpretations was
one by the Atlantic Monthly, in reviewing one of his novels,
which he says in his introduction to his biography, sympa-
thetically remarked on the hardship it must have been to a
"highly organized man" to be born in southern Indiana, in
an age of hard-cider campaigns. In resenting this, and
praising Vevay, his birthplace, he confines his defense or
eulog>' to the beauty of its location and of the natural scenery
surrounding it — "one of the loveliest villages on the Ohio
river," but there is nothing in defense of the much misunder-
stood Hoosiers who lived tliere. The following sentence
seems significant at this point: '
I changed to tlic larger Imliaua tcwiis, alonj; the Ohio river, where
there was n seuii-iirban life of considerable refinement.
Only speaking of his own family he says he was "born in an
intellectual atmosphere." While he vindicated himself and
his family, he left it to time and to others, to do full justice
to the better class of early Hoosier people. It cannot be
doubted that this silence on the author's part, upon the in-
terpretation thus widely given to this work, the most popular
of all his books, was intentional on his part and that he had a
motive in not "meddling" with the subject.
Two years later in 1892 — he published a Library Edition
of the book with a long and elaborate preface, which he calls
a biography of the book, dealing with the history and char-
acter of the work, its wonderful success, and declares it to
be the file leader of American dialect novels. His discussion
along that line is novel and very interesting. He says:
Tills initial novel, the favorite of the larger public, has beoouie in-
separably as.s<M latc^l with my name. I could not write In this vein now,
if I would, and twenty-one years have made so many change.* in me that
I dare not make any but minor rhanijes in this icork. The author of the
** Introduction to Library Edition Hoosier Schoolmaster, 26.
^Ihe Forum, Nov., 1890, p. 290.
Iglehart: Coming of the English to Indiana 133
Hoo*i«r School tiuu-< I cr is distinctly not 1 ; 1 am but hi.s heir and exec-utor;
and 8im-e be Ih a muiv |>oputir writer than I. trhy ahould I meddle icith
hit ic<jrk.
No one knows »«o well iis I the fiiultH of Inimntiirlty iiml Inexjierlence
that eharaeterlze this bi>ok. luit jHThapH the pubic is rinht In preferrluK an
author's first hook. etc.
Here seems to be an explanation why the author had de-
termined to keep "hands ofT" the book. Without discus.sing
that subject, it seems clear that as a dialect novel of low life
only, it is irrelevant, and should be excluded as a histor>' of
the better class of Hoosiers of that time. The writer has
always reg:arded Dr. Eggleston as one of the leading Amer-
ican men of letters, of whom the Hoosiers should be justly
proud. In his sketch of his life mentioned, he traces his an-
cestry on one side to the old Virginia aristocracy, and his
short characterization of that people as they appeared to
him, is a masterpiece, worthy of reproduction here. After
stating that at sixteen, after his father's death, he was sent
to live for a year in Virginia, he says:
The change from a free to a slave state, not yet entirely out of Its
pioneer cruditie.s to a society so fixed and conservative as that of the Old
Dominion, was as Kreat as the I'uite*! States aCForded at that time.
The old Virginia country-gentleinan life had a fascination not i>o9-
sesKed by any other society in the new world.
With its unboundetl hosiiitality to all comers, its enormous family
pride, its sharp line of distinction between the well-born and the plebeian,
its social refinement, its narrow ItM-al prejudices, its chivalrous and ro-
mantic sentiment toward ladies, and a certain laxity of morals growing
out of the existence of a slave class, it could not fail to excite a profound
Interest in the mind of one who had been bred in a simpler and less digni-
fied sot^'iety, in which projirleties were less regardtxl, and moralities sttme-
what more rigidly enforced. According to the Virginia method of reck-
oning. I was cousin to a large fraction of the i)oi)ulation of the State; and
I found myself a member of a powerful clan, at once domesticated, and
given singular oi)portuiiitles for knowing a life, whi<'h. in the new world
and In the middle years of the ninetiHMith century was a curious
anHchronism.
The Virginians themselves I found a most lovable people, and admir-
able In their generosity and high s«'nse of honor in public and private
ufTairs. Kven If their n^-klessness of danger and disregard of human life,
where family or personal jirlde was involve*!, were Iwirbarlsms. they were
at least barbarisms of the nobler sort. • • • Though I saw slavery
134 ludiana Mof/azhie of History
In its iiiililost forms ainoiifr my roI:itl(>ns 1 <i>uhl not hv blliul to the mnnl-
fi)Ul liijii!<tkt> iiiul tln» uniivdidaltU' cnieUies of the system.
Between the lines of this charming description may be
observed a reserve, as though the author was addressing the
American cosmopolitan woi-ld. which many believe centers
east of the Alleghenies and north of the Potomac. At the
same time his description seems to be full of sympathy. It is
the conception of a man born in the north, of good southern
stock, with northern education, rearing and ideals.
Had Eggleston remained west, in that deep sympathy
with western life found in the character sketches of Judge
James Hall,''' of the same class of people described in Eg-
gleston's work generally, it may be questioned whether his
method of treatment would have been the same. Or, if so,
whether he would not at least have made a reasonable effort
to anticipate the unfriendly effect which his work was des-
tined to produce upon the reputation of the early Hoosier pi-
oneers, outside of the State. It is to be regretted that he
neglected at this last opportunity to say a word on the
subject.
Had Baynard Hall sought to find the coarse exhibitions
of uncultured and ignorant people in Princeton, such as he
described in the Neiv Purchase, no doubt he could have found
them. Many counterparts of his caricatures of offensive
habits of common people could probably then and later have
been found in New Jersey had he hunted for them there as
he did in Indiana. His book is written anonymously and in-
dividuals are attacked under assumed names so that a key to
the book is required. One future governor of the State,
James Whitcomb. was grossly caricatured, if not libeled^
Upon the character of Joseph A. Wright, later governor,
United States senator and United States minister to Prussia,
was put a wholly uncalled for imputation. Hall's criticisms
against the camp-meetings are severe. They are caricatured
in a relentless manner \\ith no expressions of sympathy with
the people, nor their religious emotion, to mitigate the bit-
terness. His style is not unlike that of a theological con-
•• See note 70.
lylihart: Coming of the English to Indiana 135
troversialist of that age. Roosevelt truthfully describes in a
sympathetic manner all of the scenes and conduct carica-
tured by Hall, but in a kindly spirit:
Mut though ttiis iiii^lit sociii (liHtasti'ful to an oltscrvor of (Niut-atioit tiiul
self-n'straiiit. it thrillinJ tlu» lirart i>f fhi' riuK' ami sliuiiU- liackwixKisiiiHii
and reaclnnl him as he could not iK>s»sil>ly have Ikm'U reached In any other
manner. On the whole there was an immense pain for good. The i^eople
received a new llj:ht and were plven a s<Mise of moral re.'q)onsll)illty such
as they had not itrcvltPiisiy iMPSscss«'d.«"
Against such unfair treatment of irresponsible critics,
Roosevelt's virtues:
riead like annels trunipet-tonjruetl
with the descendants of the men of the "Western Waters."
The descriptions of early life and events in Indiana in
the New Purchase are many of them ver>' delightful. The
daily life and experiences of men and women in their work,
in the woods, their travels, and in their home life, described
by Hall as he saw it, will always remain an interesting and
truthful picture of the pioneer age of Indiana that has passed.
It cannot be denied, however, that his view point of the peo-
ple is that of a leading actor in the play of Hoosier life, where
he failed to succeed, and he makes no effort to disguise his
bitterness as a bad loser.
Strictures in these pages upon the man east of the Alle-
ghenies and north of the Potomac are only intended for that
class of people who have shown contempt for western people
and western manners. The westerners have been misunder-
stood by such.''"^ There were from the beginning tactful and
liberal-minded Yankees and New Yorkers who adjusted per-
fectly to pioneer life and were among the most useful citi-
zens. Some of them are mentioned among the early leaders
with whom the English mingled on their arrival in the wil-
derness. Some of them have furnished the best record now
existing of the Hoosier pioneers. Until after the public
•» Winning of the Wfat (The- Men of thf W«Btem WnterB), IV, 249.
"Croth«rH mak<n thiH <l«-iir in JiIh comments on this clasH, ItuludliiK no leas
a person than Janx-N Rujutfll I>owcll, wlio calls the Wf«jtimer "The Western
Goth" — The Fardoncra Wallet — Land of the free and charitable air — lit.
136 Indiana Magazine of History
school system of Indiana was established, this class was the
chief reliance of the city of Evansville for teachers.
Hall was wrecked on the shoals which even today con-
fronts ever>' eastern man who for the first time comes west
as a minister or teacher among western people — shoals which
a tactless and narrowminded man cannot successfully
navigate.
Roosevelt truly says :
Till' opinion of liny nioro passer tliroujrli a country is alwiiy.s less
valual>l(> than of an intelligent man who dwells and works among the
people and who [assesses hoth insipht and sympathy. «»
Such a writer was Judge James Hall, a Philadelphian,
educated to the bar, who served in the army, settled at Shaw-
neetown, Illinois, in 1820, He was circuit judge during which
he spent half his time on horseback traveling the circuit
across the State and was in close touch with the whole people.
Later he was treasurer of the State of Illinois, edited a maga-
zine and wrote a number of interesting books on western
life.*'^ He was a leading man in the State, of his time. With
a knowledge of these people among whom he spent his life
and succeeded, he has given a fair, truthful and charming
sketch of their character, free from the blemish of caricatur-
ists, who have done so much to prejudice the people east of
Indiana against the early Hoosiers. Frequently his descrip-
tion of the rustic class is just as vivid as is that found in the
New Purchase or The Hoosier School Master, but it is given
in a kindly spirit.
Isaac Reid, a Presbyterian missionary*, was pastor for a
year of a New Albany church in 1818, and for about ten years
later lived in southern Indiana and had every opportunity of
knowing and knew the people as well as any man of his time.
His impartial and manifestly truthful descriptions of the in-
telligent and cultured class of Hoosiers, places them on an
equality with those of any section in the old Northwest.'*
Birkbeck and George Flower lived among and studied
• Winning of the West. Pt. 4. Ch. 1. 29.
™ His best descriptions of people of this section are found in his Romance of
Weatrrn Uiatnr)/ or Skctrhea of Hiatorjj, Life and ^fannera of the Wett.
" Indiana aa aeen bj/ Earlxt Travelrra — Lindley. 473-497. See also Caleb
Atwater Id. 530. and Charles E. Coffin. Id. 533.
Iglihart: Coming of the English to Indiana 137
these sturdy pioneers of the wilderness and with other
friendly travelers and writers of that time, ^\\e many illus-
trations of the high traits of manhood, intelligence, inde-
pendence, and good qualities shown by them under circum-
stances of the severe hardships of their lives. They place
them above the common people of Europe and to some extent
foretell the character of the coming natives of the west.
All this was accessible to Eggleston and Baynard Rush
Hall. It is not believed that it was intentionally suppressed
by them, but it was not to their purpose nor within their
viewpoint. Under the guise of fiction or fictitious surround-
ings, writers without restraint, or any seeming sen.se of re-
sponsibility for consequences, have taJven unfair liberties
with society, sometimes with an intent inconsistent with fair-
ness and justice, with sarcasm and ridicule without proper
and fair discrimination in favor of the best. We refer to
moral responsibility. The doctrine of legal responsibility for
libel protects individuals from attacks of this kind whether
open or covert.
Very recently a leading western publishing house, which
issued a novel, was surprised with a libel suit in New York,
upon the charge that under a fictitious name the author had
lampooned a New York judge against whom he had a griev-
ance, and on a trial the jury gave the plaintiff a verdict of
thirty-five thousand dollars damages against the publisher.
Such material has been misleading and has furnished the
man of the east the opportunity of exercising the undue and
offensive familiarity of the elder to the younger brother in
the west. There should be yet those, while a few of the chil-
dren of those pioneers live, who have spent their youth among
them, and who were in sympathy with them during their
lives, who shall describe them, in truth and justice and kind-
ness, without the intrusion of descriptions of a lower and
disgu.sting class of humanity, to unfairly detract from a
truthful picture. An excellent foundation for this is found
in a recent magazine article, entitled "The Pioneer Aris-
tocracy.""- It is not fiction, it deals with facts. Very many
"Dr. Logan Ewiry. Indiuna Mngutine of History, Sept. 1918.
138 Indi(nia Ma(jazine of History
of them, furnishing a truthful picture of the life of the
Hoosier pioneer. It is a normal and sane-minded description
of a society which deserves the fairest and best treatment.
It is of the greatest importance that among the young
people of Indiana there should be fostered a State pride, al-
ready existing with many people, not inferior to that to be
found in any American commonwealth. They should be
taught the beautiful, the true and the good in its history of
which there is so much, rather than so great over-emphasis
of the husks that are to be found in the history of the pioneers
of any of the States.
Roosevelt's chapters on the Backwoodsmen of the Alle-
ghenies and on the Men of the Western Waters contain a
wealth of historical facts and descriptions of the traits of the
native pioneer. His appreciative sympathy with the fron-
tiersman has enabled him to furnish this as no other man has
done. This has been supplemented by the work of Dr. Fred-
erick Turner, who has been concerned with the reactive in-
fluences of the central west upon the east, with the develop-
ment of institutions, and the later histoiy of events in which
he has been the best interpreter of the life of the people of
this section of the time of which we write.
There were also men, a few of whom have been men-
tioned, living on the north side of the river at that time ca-
pable of giving fair, friendly and discriminating sketches of
the men and women with whom they lived and who knew the
sources of population out of which that composite society was
formed, and who have left such a record.
These, with other writers, with the testimony of people
still living who personally knew many of the men and women
who were pioneers in the period mentioned, furnish a key
to a fair and impartial history of the life and character of
the Hoosier aristocracy yet to be written.
Neighbors of Lincoln
It is a coincidence that when Abraham Lincoln came to
Indiana in the summer of 1816, a boy of seven years of age,
he located in Perry county, then less than a mile from the line
lyU'hcrt: Comiiuj of the English to Indiana 139
of Warrick county, in which was then Hvinp Joseph Lane,
who came from Kentucky in 1S16."-' P'ourteen years hiter,
Lincohi. then twenty-one years old, moved to Illinois. Still
later. .Josei)ii Lane moved to Orejfon. in isr)(), when the Lin-
coln and Hamlin Presidential ticket was elected, Jo.seph
Lane was a candidate for \'ice-President on the opposing;
ticket of Preckenrid^o and Lane."' It is generally a.ssunied
that Lincoln first came to Spencer county, a river county,
which adjoins Warrick county on the ea.st, l)ut Spencer county
was not created until the act of the legislature of January
10. 1818, was passed,"' Warrick county, when created out
of Knox county, March 9, 1813, extended from the Wabash
river to Harrison county."" Nicolay and Hay" show an inti-
macy, with intermarriages, between the Boones and Lincolns
of an early time, and that the grandfather of President Lin-
coln followed Daniel Boone to Kentucky. It is also true that
the Lincolns. uncle and cousins of Abraham Lincoln, followed
Squire Boone, brother of Daniel Boone, to Harrison county.
Indiana.'"^ and Thomas Lincoln, while following his brother
to Indiana, settled within twenty miles of Ratliff Boone, of
Boonville, Warrick county, w^ho had lived in Indiana terri-
tory since 1809 and who represented Spencer county in con-
grress, while the Lincolns lived there. Mr. J. Ed. Murr was
reared near the Lincolns as neighbors in Harrison county.
" Fortune, Warrick ami its Prominent People, 76.
'♦ See note 43.
" History of Warrick, Spencer and Perry Counties, 277.
w/d.. 3«.
" lAfe of Lincoln, V. I. p. 4.
"Squire Boone settled in Harrison county In 1802 .and there Daniel Boone
frequently visited and hunted. Wm. H. Roose, Indiana's lUrthplace — History of
Harrison County, p. 7. FUitliff Boone, congressman of the Lincolns, as well as
of the people of the EhKllsh settlement, when Abraham Lincoln was twenty and
twenty-one years old and earlier, was a man of considerable education, but moved
to Missouri late in the 30*8 and dlttl there In the 40".s. He was undoubtedly very
familiar with his constituents, the W'heelers, Hlllyards, Hornbrooks. Ingles, Maid-
lows and others, who had brought IkkjUs from EnKhind. as well as the Lincolns
and It la probable that Abraham Lincoln learned of the fact : whether he availed
himself of the opportunity to rend any of such books, history Is silent. The
■WheeW-rs. Hilly.'irds, Hornbrooks, Maidlows and InKles w«'re not living when the
coiiiiiaratlsfly limited UuiulrleH at a late date were made amoiiK Lincoln's ac-
quaintances In Sp<'ncer county. A few of them, only, lived until Lincoln became
President, and if any of the persons mentioneii ever referred to his n'sidcnce In
Bouthwestvni Indiana ao close to the 8<-ltlcinent there la no one now llvinjf who
hcanl and remembers It.
140 I)i/fiana Magazine of Histoid
When Saunders Hornbrook, the original pioneer of the
English settlement, located upon his choice in the wilderness
in October or November, 1817, it was forty miles west of the
farm of Thomas Lincoln, the location now occupied by Lin-
coln City in Spencer county.
In 1825, one of the pioneers elsewhere mentioned, in the
eastern border of the settlement in Campl^ell township, War-
rick county, about twenty miles west of where Lincoln lived,
was a magistrate and later a lay judge and many years
county commissioner in Warrick county.
Luke Grant, one of the settlement, built a mill at Millers-
burgh in 1825'" still nearer the Lincoln farm, and it is not
unlikely that Lincoln, who was born February 12, 1809, and
was then between 16 and 17 years of age, had dealings with
or knew some of these settlers. Certain it is that Lincoln
acquired the habit of attending court at Boonville, then and
now the county seat of Warrick county.^''
The leaders of the Saundersville and Blue Grass locations
(the latter about thirty miles west of Lincoln City), from the
period of 1818 to 1830, when Lincoln, twenty-one years old,
left Indiana, had a nwmber of volumes of the classics of Eng-
lish poetry and prose, and enjoyed the music and culture of
old English life. There are still living descendants of the
English, old people, who learned their childhood speech from
men and women born in England, more than one hundred
years ago, from those who spoke the language of England
in its purity, and who preserved in the wilderness its litera-
ture, music, culture and religion, and delivered them to their
children and children's children. These old people, even yet
in their childhood memories, treasure the nurser>' rhymes,
humor and family traditions of England, the plaintive poetry
of Tom Moore, Thomas Campbell and others, commemorat-
ing the martyrs of the Irish Rel^ellion and deploring the loss
of Iri.sh liberty, .set to a sad music, as well as the martial
strains of Scott and Burns.''' These conditions mentioned in
•» K<>rtvm»', Wnrrirk CoUMt]/ Prominrnt Proplr, 36.
••J. Kd. Murr. History of Lincoln, Indiana Magazine of History, June 1S18 —
150-154-1.S9-160 ; Lnmon'a Life of Lincoln, 67.
** King Atcohol Dethroned, by Rev. F. C. Iglehart. D. D.. 71. This .author,
who refers to thtse memories, is a representative of three of the pioneer families
Iglehart: Comhuj of the FtKjlush to Indiana 141
the British settlement were probably nearer to the Lincoln
location than any similar opportunity in the wilderness. Lin-
coln's nature craved books. He traveled on foot long dis-
tances to get them. He was a frequent visitor of the Breck-
enridge home near Boonville to read and borrow law books.**-
The Evansville Weekly Gazette was published at Evan.s-
ville from 1821 to 1825, inclusive, and it pul^lished legal and
other court notices for Spencer, Warrick and all adjoining
counties. It was the only newspaper in the section outside of
Vincennes and New Harmony, and contained much news of
public interest and matters local in the congressional district,
which included Spencer county, where Lincoln lived at the
age of 16 and over. Its election returns were gathered and
published with noteworthy enterprise and embraced out-
side counties.
There were published in 1820 to 1830 weekly newspapers
in Evansville,^' New Harmony, ^^ Vincennes,**'' and Cory-
don"*', the files of which are now accessible, perhaps for other
periods, though complete files are not preserved. During all
that period Spencer county was in the same congressional
district with Evansville, Princeton and New Harmony, much
of the time represented in congress by Ratlilf Boone, who
In the tirst British sc-ttk-im-nt In Indiana, and was born in the eastern edge of it
in 1845. His mother was born in Somershani, the town where Faux lived, and
as a child five years old. came with her widowed mother to her uncle John Ingle
of Saundersville. His fatljer was born in Kentucity. Both )»is father's parents
were Tidewater Marylanders. He was one of tlie native Hoosier ministers, not
mentioned among the names elsewliere referred to as of an earlier period. But
the same influences which created the first effective native ministry In south-
western Indiana under Parrett and Wheeler, undoubtedly reached him in his
home life. He knew and lieard preach l)Otli Parrett and Wheeler in tlieir later
life. He was chosen as a platform orator and temperance debater, from among
the New York ministers, after a dranuitic and successful answer to Mr. Jerome,
attorney for the brewers and liquor dealers in a hearing before the Temperance
Committee of the New York legislature in a large hall In Albany and for over
ten years acted :ls superintendent of tlie Anti-Saloon League of greater New York.
Few, if any, have pt.-rformed greater 8er\'ice in that cause. At the close of a long
and succesBful career as minister, lecturer, writer and temperance leader, ho
publlshe<l. under a prophetic title, at the opp<jrtune moment, the book referre<l to,
which 1b authority ui><)n the facts In tlje history of tlie liquor trafllc.
" Murr's Mncolii, Ind. .V«y. //i»f.. June, iyi8, p. 159.
■ Kvansvllle dasette \^Z\ to 18J5 Inclusive.
•*New Harmony Uaxette 1825 to 1828; N. H. DUaeminator 1828-1829; N. H.
and Nashoba (.asette 1828-1831.
• H'rafrm Sun <( Beneral Adverliaer 1819 to 1830 and later.
-Indiana Sentinel and Adverfiaer 1820-1821.
142 luffiana Marjazine of History
lived only about twenty miles from Lincoln. Boone was Lin-
coln's congressman the last two years the latter lived in Indi-
ana as well as formerly. There was a direct i)uhiic road from
Piinceton to New Harmony, one from Evansville to Boon-
ville and from Kvansville throuph Saundersville to Princeton
and Vincennes. also to New Harmony, and one from Boon-
ville through Saundersville to New Harmony. The latter
town, as its newspapers show, was the center of literary cul-
ture of respectable character compared with the best culture
of that age, anywhere. Very early a road ran from Corydon
to Evansville, passing by Lincoln's farm through what is now
known as Gentryville.'^^
Easy and frequent communication by river existed from
all the points named (except Princeton and Corydon) to and
from Troy, Rockport and Anderson creek, where the Lincolns
are frequently found during this period. A stage line run-
ning on schedule time between Evansville. Pi'inceton and
Vincennes. making one trip a week, was established and first
put in operation in the summer of 1824.**^ This continued till
a railroad was put in operation nearly thii'ty years later.
Abraham Lincoln, once a yeai- or oftener, went to Prince-
ton to Col. James Evans for carding of wool. Evans' brother,
Gen. Robert ]\L Evans, was for several years a tavern
keeper and assistant postmaster at New Harmony in the year
1827 and later.^-' General Evans was an interesting charac-
ter and figured much in the newspapers in Evansville. New
Harmony and Vincennes. and it is altogether prol^able that
his brother, the wool carder at Princeton, had the newspapers
of the day, for so eager an inquirer for "news" and a cus-
tomer as Lincoln is shown during that period to have been.""
Evans was enterprising enough to advertise his wool card-
ing machine in the Evansville Gazctte,^*^ which, no doubt, cir-
culated in the Lincoln neighl)orhood.
Corydon, from 1816 to 1825, the capital of the State, about
"^ Lamon's Lincoln. 24.
"Evansville Uatette, July 14. 1824. Full details of this interesting event are
advertised.
•New Harmony Gtuette. Feb. 14. 1827.
•• Murr's "History of Lincoln." Indiana Ungatinc of History.
« E\•ans^•iUe Oatette, Juno 20. 1823.
Ighha)-i: Cominu of the Knglish to Indiana 14.'J
fifty-five miles distant from the lincoln farm, was near the
center of the large family of Lincoln uncles and cousins."-
The few details preserved of Lincoln's early life, up to man-
hood, and his character as the world later knew him, show
him to have been too aggressive and earnest in search for
knowledge of the outside world to have been ignorant of all
of these sources of information, which for that age were
fairly easy of access to him, without doubt. Many of the
interesting facts of his life in Indiana have been wholly lost
to history. That no record is preserved of his knowledge ob-
tained from any of these sources may be accounted for in the
death of the people of that time, capable of appreciating its
importance, before Lincoln became famous, or that the facts
involved may have escaped inquiry later, or that many of the
illiterate of his neighbors may not have known or remem-
bered such facts.
It is easier to believe this than that Abraham Lincoln re-
mained ignorant of all these avenues of information till after
he was 21 years old. Miss Robey, to whom Lincoln paid spe-
cial attention as a young woman, who later married Allen
Gentry, said of Lincoln : "He was better read than the world
knows or is likely to know exactly."'' At 19, Lincoln read
every book he could find.'" Tarbell gives the usual short
list of books which the scant information of his life in Indi-
ana furnishes, and says : "These are the chief ones we know
about.* * * beside these he borrowed many other books.
* * * He once told a friend that he read through every
book he had ever heard of in that country, for a circuit of
fifty miles.""'' John T. Richards, president of the Chicago
Bar Association, reviews the scant evidence on this subject
from a lawyer's standpoint, and says that it is unfortunate
that l)eyond a general statement that while a youth in Indi-
ana, Lincoln read the Bible, Shakespeare, Pilgrint's Progress
and Weems' Life of Washington and such other books as he
could borrow, there is no evidence available as to the
" Murr'B "History of Lincoln." Ind. May. of Uiatury, Doc. 1917, p. 307.
"Ward H. I^mon. Life of Lincoln 70, Ilmtdon, Vol. I, 39.
** Nlcolay & Hay. V. I. p. 41'.
•• Life of Lincoln, V. I, p. 29.
144 Indiana Magazine of Histary
books which aided in the development of his mind up to the
time when he removed to Illinois; and in referring: to Lincoln
as an educated man, says that his early speeches and writ-
ings show a marked familiarity with history and knowledge
of the English language.'"- Arnold says Lincoln read Burns'
poems and other books till he was familiar with them.''" One
of the children of the first generation born in the English set-
tlement speaks of Burns' Po( nus as among his childhood
memories, heirlooms from English homelife, "the voice of
Burns across tlie sea."****
The Spirit of the Ohio Valley
Our national history has for the most part been written
by New England men. but from a sectional viewpoint, which
over-estimated Puritan influence in the development of na-
tional character.''"* When we sing "My Country 'Tis of Thee"
the country that is visualized is very small. The author of
the hymn was a New England clerg>'man and naturally
enough described New England and called it America. It is
a land of rocks and rills and woods, and the hills are templed
in Puritan fashion by while meeting houses; for the early
New Englander, like erring Israel of old, loved to worship
on the high places. Over it all is one great tradition : "It
is the land of the Pilgrim's pride."'""
The American spirit — the traits that have come to be rec-
ognized as the mo.st characteristic — was developed in the new
commonwealths that sprang into life beyond the seaboard.""
** Abrahttm Linmln. Lawyer oiftd Statesihan, P. 1-3:
•^ Life of Lincoln 21.
"See note 81. An editorial obitii.iry notice of the Evansvlllo Courier fuly
2S, 18S2. of the cUuth of Mrs. Ann Cowlo iRlchart. wifo of As.'i lKl«^hart. CT^nnd-
dauKhtiT of John Inple of Som'Tsham. says: "The f:imlly of which Mrs. lKlt'h.irt
came w»to not lackinK In lltt-mry tasto, .ind In th.at •■;irly day, when a b(ic»k w.aa
unknown to most of the homvs of th.at neighborhood, th<.> family of Mark Wheeler.
|»er stepfather, was supplied with a library. The children of tho family, con-
trary to th<- other familios of that tim-, spent their long winter evenings reading
stan«lard EnRlLsh works."'
•• Wood row Wilson. Thr courar of Amrriran Ilistnrxj (men- literautro), 218.
»•• .«!amuel McChord Crothers, The Pardoners Wallet — The land of the large
and charitable air. 14S. This brilliant writer Mas actually found a true American
instinct in old MIrandy Means, who. he says, "formulatfd thf wisdom of the
pioneer" who pre-emptfd more land than he could cxjltlvatp. Id. 171.
•"Frederick Turner. Rise of the Jfew West (1820-1830). 68.
Iglihart: Coming of the English to Indiana 145
The Atlantic frontier had to work upon European germs.
Moving westward each new frontier was more and more
American at the start ; and soon the older communities were
reacted upon wholesomely by the simplicity and democracy
of the west. These considerations give the key to the mean-
ing of the west in American history.'"- Says Frederick G.
'"^William Mason West. Hiatorn of the American People, 270.
Turner:
Aiuorimn s<»ci;il tU'veloimiont has lui-ii Odiitlnually beginning over
again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American
life, this expansion westward with its new opiM>rtunltie8, this contnuous
toufh with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces domi-
nating American character. • • ♦ The frontier is the line of most
rapid an«l eflfiHtlve Americanization.
The west at bottom is a form of society rather than area.
The problem of the west is nothing less than the problem of
American development. Today the old Northwest is the key-
stone to the American commonwealth. ^''-^
Mr. West states that Dr. Turner is the first true inter-
preter of the frontier in our history.'"^ This author (Tur-
ner), with the advantage of the most complete collection of
materials upon the west which has ever been brought to-
gether— The Library^ of the Wisconsin State Historical So-
cietyi"^, has in his recent writings given to the people of the
States of the central west, embracing the location and period
we are here considering, their ance.stry, emigration and the
establishment by them of the true non-sectional American
Democracy, a dignity and importance never recognized
before.'""
Mr. Murr's Histor>% in the fullest detail, discusses the
frontier life of Abraham Lincoln in Indiana, from the age
of 7 to 21, from 1816 to 1830, during which period he lived in
•"Turner. Atlantic Monthly, V. 78. p. 289. V. 79. p. 433.
'•* Wf8t. History of the American People, 270 — note.
"•Albtrt BuHhntll Hart, Editorial Prefa*-.- to Turn<r"ii Rise of the Sew West.
»^ Krt-d trick O. Turnt-r. "The Slgnlflcanco of tho Frontier." In American
History Report 1893, American Hlirtorlcul Auociation 199. "Contributions of the
West to Amirlcjui Dcmoonlcy." Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 91, p. 83. "The Middle
W<irt." International Monthly, IV. 794. "Prolilem of the West," Atlantic
Monthly, Vol. 'X, p. 283. "Dominant Korcoa In Wowtern IJf«>." Atlantic 79. 488.
Rise of th« New We$t (The American Nation History), ©ditcd A. B. Hart.
14{j Indiana Magazine of History
Indiana, and justly claims that his character was moulded
and developed by his Hoosier surroundings. He claims that
the boy was father to the man. In an address to an Indiana
regiment of Civil war soldiers. President Lincoln said: "I
was born in Kentucky, raised in Indiana, and now live in
Illinois."
Edward Eygleston, in iiis biograjihy elsewhere mentioned,
gives the greatest importance to the "formative influences"
of his youth wliile living in Southern Indiana, on his career
as an author, in which he says he was only drawing on the
resources which the very peculiar circumstances of his lif^
had put at his disposal. He adds: "Is it Herder who says,
my whole life is but the interpretation of the oracles of my
childhood?"'""
The Lincoln type, in figure, movement, features, facial
make-up, simplicity of speech and thought, gravity of coun-
tenance, and integrity and truthfulness of life, as it stands
accredited by the vast number of writers on Lincoln, is in a
substantial degree a Hoosier type in southern Indiana today.
It may be still found in the judge on the bench, the lawyer
at the bar, the preacher in the pulpit, and others descended
from pioneer stock who are forceful and intelligent leaders
of the common people. '"« It should be remembered that pre-
vious to 1830 the population of the farmer pioneers of south-
ern Indiana who did not come from Kentucky and the south,
were the exceptions. Turner correctly says that it is the
southern element today which differentiates Indiana from
Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan, her sister states of
the old Northwest. The central west, like the southwest, took
its early impress from the central Atlantic coast States of
New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Until the inven-
tion of the cotton gin, when cotton plantations made slave
'•f /••onoM. X, 290.
'°" An okl Civil war soldier livinR In Illinois knew Lincoln as a surveyor In
Illinois and hoard the Lincoln -Doujf las debate at Freeport. After he.aring Rev.
J. E. Miirr deliver an address on Lincoln, he came to him and fiaid : "I hope you
won't mind my saying that you. of all men I ever n»et, remind me most of Lin-
coln at 3". to 40. Your st.'iture is not as (freat but your face, manner and speech
and the little ways you have curry me back to Lincoln." Mr. Murr was bom In
Corjdon, of Kentucky parentage, and is now pastor of Bayard Park M. B.
Church, a prominent church In EvansvlUe.
Iglfhart: Cominy of the English to Imliana 147
labor very profitable, the west, lyinj? north of the Ohio river,
and southwest were much alike,'"'' and the resemblance
and sympathy between the people of those sections are
strontr today.
It was only after the institution of slavery settled firmly
and generally upon the south that the people of the country
north of the Ohio river became distinctly separate. Lincoln
came to Indiana in 181G, the year of its admission as a State,
with a provision in its constitution a^^ain.st slavery. No one
can doubt the influence upon Lincoln, the child and youn^?
man. in his life upon the free soil of Indiana. Eggleston
gives strong testimony on this point in his biographical
sketch"" when he describes slavery in its mildest form among
his father people's people in Virginia, and after a year's resi-
dence there at the age of 16, on his return to Indiana, he
later says :
From the time of uiy visit t<» Virginia I couiitiHl myself nu Almlltionist.
The influence and necessities of slavery in the south re-
quired control of the press and in a degree the freedom of
speech. Brander Mathews has shown, upon no less authority
than Thomas Nelson Page and Prof. William P. Trent, in his
biography of William Gilmore Sims, that this restraint was
one of the chief causes which prevented the growth of a
southern literature before the Civil war."' Free land and
free institutions were the hope of the poor as well as more
thrifty white people, which brought them across* the Ohio
river. After Kentucky had become well settled, land was
more expensive and slavery had become a permanent in-
stitution.
It was destined that the Apostle of Freedom was to come
of this class, and to be removed from the heavy weight with
which slavery bore upon the poor whites. Out of the spirit of
American democracy came the ideal now to direct the des-
•"Allien Biiiihnill Hart, EJdltorlal introduction to Turner's Rise of the New
M'rsi, XIV. Id. p. 75-91.', i'j : V. C Turner. "Dominant Forc«'8 in Wtstcrn LiK-,"
Atlantic. 79. 43S ; "The SiBnlcanci- of tli« frontier in Aim-rlcan Hiiilory," Am.
Hist. Aaan. R. 1893. p. 220; RooBt-velt, Winyting tht- Wvat, Ch. Mt-n of the Wful-
ern Waters.
"• Forum, X. 288.
•"Brander Mathews. Aspects of Fiction — Two Studieg of the South.
148 hidiana Magazine of History
tinies of the new British settlers and their Hoosier neighbors,
one of whom was Abraham Lincoln. The general British
emigration, of which the Illinois and Indiana colonies were
part, began when Indiana became a State in 1816 with a con-
stitution prohibiting slavery. It was no accident that in that
year Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, with the boy Abra-
ham, came from a slave State to the free soil and free institu-
tions of Indiana and settled in the wilderness of southwest-
ern Indiana. The ideals operating on Lincoln in his youth
while he was a southern Indiana Hoosier at the time in the
location we are considering, as compared with those then
existing in slave territory, are thus stated by Turner :''-
The tiiitunil deiuocTiitlc tendencies tbat had earlier shown themselves
in the Gulf States were destroyed, however, by the spread of cotton cul-
ture and tJio dovelopuient of preat plantations in that repion. What had
been typical of the democracy of the Itcvolution.iry frontier and of the
frontier of Andrew Jackson was now to he seen in the States between the
Ohio and the Mississip|)i. As Andrew .7ack.'*on is the typical democrat of
the former region, so Abraham IJncoln is the very embodiment of the
pioneer period of the old Tiorthwpst. Indofnl. ho is the embodiment of the
democracy of the west.
The pioneer life from which Lincoln came diflfere<l in important re-
si)ects from the frontier democracy tjTiitiwl by Andrew Jack.son. J.-ickson's
democracy was contentious, individualistic, and it sought tlio i<leal of local
self-povornment and oxi»ansion. Lincoln represents rather the jiioneer
folk who enteretl the forest of the great northwest to chop out a home,
to build up their fortunes in the midst of a continually ascending indus-
trial movement. In the democracy of the southwest, industrial develop-
ment and city life were only minor factors, but to the democracy of the
northwest they were its very life. To widen the area of the clearing, to
contend with one another for the mastery of the industrial resources of
'""Contributions of the West to American Democracy," Atlantic Sfonthly,
XCI, 89.
De.vrlptlona of life In southern Indlan.i by many of the blopraphers of
Lincoln, Including T.arbell. I, p. 47, Nicolay & Hay, I. Ch. 2. arc given as the back-
ground to the picture of a great character, of world-wide Interest, and are too
comprehensive and open too wide .a field for the present Inquiry : however, a field
well worthy of study in connection with an lnquir>- into the ch.T.racter of the early
farmer pioneers In the wild<-me.'«s. John Hay was born at S.ilem. Ind.. Oct. 8,
1838, less than a year after the birth of Edward Kggleston at Vevay. Dec. 10,
1837, not over 60 miles distant. None of these writers have Interpreted the mean-
ing of life in the old Northwest with the vision of Dr. Turner, whose works deal
with the period during which Lincoln lived In southwestern Indiana, from 1S16
to 1830. which covers the time as well as the territory embraced in the present
Inquiry.
Iglehaft: Coyning of the English to In^Iiami 149
the rich proTlm't's, itt struggle for a place In the Hs^eiulluK luovfuii-ul uf
■oclety, to tniiisiult tt» one's offsprlnK the chance for education, for ludu»-
trlal hetteriuent, for the rise lu life which the hardshlpn of the pioneer
existence tleiiitsl to tlic pioneer Iiliiiself, these were some (»f the IdeulH of
the region to which Lincoln came. The men were commonwealth huilderx.
Industry hullders. Whereas the type of hero In the southwest was mili-
tant, in the northwest h«' was industrial. It was in the midst of these
"plain iuMtjile." as he 1ov»h1 to call them, that Lincoln urew to uianhood.
As Knjerson says: "He is the true history of the American iKHjple in his
time." The years of his early life were the years when the (lemocra«-y of
the northwest came Into struggle with the institution of slavery that threat-
ene«l to forhid the expansion of the democratic pioneer life in the west.
The ideal of the west was its emphasis upon the worth
and possibilities of the common man, of its belief in the right
of every man to rise to the full measure of his owti nature,
under conditions of social mobility. Western democracy was
no theorist's dream. It came stark and strong and full of life
from the American forest."-' The westerner has been the
type and master of our national life.''* The comparatively
recent publication and reprint with notes by Dr. Thwaites
of the writings of early western travelers in thirty-odd vol-
umes are treated by Dr. Turner in a review""- as a sign of
the interest that is aroused in western history, and an indi-
cation that the region this side of the Allegheny mountains
has reached the stage that comes to every people, when in the
pride of achievement it turns to survey the records of its past.
The Hoosier has come into his own. He demands a fair
interpretation of those records, and is proud of them. He has
no patience with apologists at home, who have been misled
by unfair interpretation, nor with the condescending criti-
cisms of certain people of other States. No intelligent and
fair-minded person will judge the character of a whole people
in pioneer Indiana at the beginning of the State by the care-
less or malicious sketches of the lowest class of people cor-
rectly de.scribed by Dr. Turner as "the scum that the waves of
advancing civilization bore before them."""
•»* Fnd.rick G. Turner. Rise of the New West. 1S19-1S29. 86.
"♦ Woodrow Wilson. The Course of American IJiatori/ (mere literatur0), 218.
•»» The Dial. XXXVII. :'98.
•""The .Slgnlflcanct- of tho Frontier In American History," American UiMtory
Anociation R., 1893, 223 note.
150 In/iiana Magazine of Histoi-y
Pionp:er Life
The severity of pioneer life, with its hard labor, the isola-
tion of families, want of g-ood roads in winter, the limited
opportunity for gathering together of people at public enter-
tainments and Sunday religious services, made social life and
entertainment at a very early day, especially for women and
children, very limited. In this respect the life of the settlers
of the English settlement was much in common with the life
of the native pioneers with whom they mingled. Visiting
was common among young people and relatives. For
a young man to call upon a young lady meant often for him
to ride horseback five or ten miles, even farther. Saturday
afternoons were generally recognized as a time for recrea-
tion. At the neighborhood store of evenings and particularly
Saturday afternoons, the men, young and old, gathered in
groups for sociability and to barter ; money was scarce and
most of the trade, and purchases as well, were exchanges of
goods at market prices.
At these gatherings stories were told and jokes perpe-
trated. Rifle practice, testing the best skill of the hunter, was
a popular entertainment. When men or boys went to the
store or visiting, they usually carried a gun, on the proba-
bility of seeing a deer or other game or wild animal.
At corn shuckings and log rollings a general good time,
with feasting, dancing and drinking, followed. If a neighbor
was sick and unable to cut his firewood, or a widow had no
one to do that work for her, neighbors would gather with
their axes and cut a good pile of wood and carry or haul it
to the house. Such an occasion was generally followed by a
general social entertainment. The drinking habit, while
abused here as elsewhere by persons who indulged to excess,
was a very common one, and public opinion was tolerant of
it. Faux expresses throughout his book the highest Chris-
tion sentiment, no doubt sincerely. He is merciless in his
criticisms generally, and especially of the poor lodging ac-
commodations for travelers at taverns and in private houses.
He occasionally mentions in mitigation of the many faults
that good whiskey or brandy was produced. Mr. Hornbrook
Iglehart: Cominy of the English to hutiatm 151
records the well-known fact that when on occasions the
preacher arrived at the house to conduct relij^ious services
there, and was tired and needed a stimulant, he did not hesi-
tate to set out the decanter of brandy, which was welcome.
As a rule, people drank in moderation. The Erskines tried
to raise a log cabin without free whiskey, but most reluc-
tantly were compelled to yield the point. Whiskey was five
cents a glass, and a glass full at the store was often divided
up among a number of persons. Fifteen or twenty cents
would buy a small jug full. E.xcitable or quarrelsome per-
sons under the influence of whiskey sometimes engaged in
brawls.
If a fight reached the danger point in the matter of public
peace or example or safety, the grand jury frequently in-
dicted one or both of the parties, who had to plead guilty or
stand a jury trial in the circuit court. The record of these
court trials, as well as of civil suits, where the names of the
principals involved, as well as the names of by-standers and
witnesses, are endorsed upon the indictment or found in the
summons and subpoenas, has been one of the aids in refresh-
ing the memories of the oldest inhabitants, particularly Ed-
ward Maidlow and James Erskine, who have assisted in re-
storing the faded pictures of these early times.
Negley's mill was a rendezvous for people of all classes
from different neighborhoods, who came to mill. There stood
a substantial frame steam saw mill and steam flour, corn
and grist mill. Nearby the family lived, in a substantial and
commodious farm house. The Negley mill, which had been
established and owned by James Anthony (not Jonathan
Anthony, as the historians record), was the best equipped
mill of its kind in southwestern Indiana for many years, and
changed hands when Negley bought it, about 1819, at a very
considerable price. At the earliest date animal power, alone,
in a log hou.se, was used, and the mill supjilied the country
for many miles around. In a local history is given an inter-
esting description of the old days at Negley's mill and the
social life and entertainments there, which continued down
for a generation. A trip to the mill was often an excuse for
young people of both sexes to go to the business and social
152 liidiaiw. Magazine of History
center. The list of patrons from the records of the owners
of the mill includes many names from the English set-
tlement.""
In 1825 Saunders Hornbrook, Sr., wrote to a friend in
England that they were compelled to manufacture their
clothing, because of the scarcity of specie, the women some-
times carding the cotton and wool, then spinning, weaving
and fashioning the cloth into garments. Little time was left
for sociability, with the labors which the women had then to
perform, and this was substantially the condition in all the
families of the settlement.
In the Evansville Gazette of June 29, 1825, are two no-
tices of local interest, showing the patriotic spirit of the
people. One is a publication of a notice signed by a com-
mittee on arrangements, in Evansville, informing the public
of a procession from the house of Daniel Chute on the Fourth
of July, to march to the courthouse and hear the address of
Dr. William P. Foster; after which the procession was to re-
turn to Mr. Chute's house, where a dinner was to be "pre-
pared for those who were disposed to partake of it." Imme-
diately following this notice, of the same date, is the fol-
lowing :
rriJLIC IHNNKli
.V riil)lio Dinner will bo provide*! at the House of .*^:inuiel Scott in the
English Settlement to celebrate with be<'ouilnR spirit the gorious inde-
pendence of Amfri<"!i. We ulve this i)nbli<' notice as many of onr neigh-
bors comi)iained last year they liatl not an oi)portunlty of attending, for
want of timely information. It will l)e condiu'ted on the Siime principles
as that of last year. Subscriptions will be recelveil at Samuel Scott's.
Tlie dinner will be on the table at one o'cbx-k.
R. Carlisle.
S. Scott.
.T. Ingle.
C rotts.
J. Cawson.
S. Mans«-l].ii«
This scrap shows that the "English Settlement" was well
known to the readers of the paper; that it aspired equally
^" Elliott. History nf Vandrrburgh Countv. 98. 96.
"•Evansville (iazette, June 18, 1825. Local news was so rare that the editor
In such matters u.iually used his editorial column.
lylehart: Coming of the English to Indiana 153
with the villapre of Evansville to recoj^mize the Fourth of July
with "becoming spirit"; and that Samuel Scott and Richard
Carlisle, prominent men, who were on the ijround before
Hornbrook, the "Father of the Settlement," came, and who
came from Enjjrland by way of Virginia, were recognized &s
leaders in the settlement.
In 1822 Hornbrook, for social and mutual benefits, called
the men of the neighborhood together to meet at his house
every Saturday afternoon, when they had one or two papers
on the subject of agi'iculture or any other topic of general
interest, which were followed by discussion. He writes that
"it was the intention to hold more general meetings the next
year, for the county, to a greater extent." Of course, there
was no benefit or sociability for the women in these meet-
ings, but there had "come into the settlement a number of
good respectable English families within three miles, which
to some extent supplied that need."
Hornbrook had been a manufacturer and contractor and
business man of considerable experience in the old country
and as long as he lived, engaged in business and matters of
general interest in trade and manufacture in the set-
tlement.
Describing the situation of his family, which was much
similar to those of John Ingle, and the Maidlows, near neigh-
bors, as well as of the Wheelers, Joseph and Mark, the Ers-
kines, Hillyards and others, six miles or farther distant east-
wardly, Hornbrook, in 1822, writes:
y>>r the first few yt'.ir.s in our new Ikhik" iiiy f;iiiiily hoinn l!ir;ro (ton
cblldreii), we did not foci the hmeliiiess wiiich siiiiiller f;iiiillies exiK-rieiKinJ
in this new country, where one couhl not .see farther tliiiu ii (jmirter <>f a
mile, l)e(-auKe of the dense woods in all directions. In a sliort time tlie
older ones married and M'ttled near us. building: tlieir <al»liis and clearing
the land and extending: our social neinls.
He writes his old English friends:
Our society here cannot be st» select us with you, hut we have as much
sincerity and friendship, hut there Is no time for vIsltlnK or idle chit-
chat. I'rohahly after a few y«>ars we may have some leisure, tliougli there
are no Kervants to relieve the women of labor, tm no tlm«' for live o'chnk
tea with the ladies, as In Old KnKland. but we have no taxes nu tithe*
— no excise lawH — and |»erfiH't fn^Hlom of thouf;ht an«l worslilp.
151 huliana Magazine of History
The better element in the English settlement depended
much on each other for their social life and for aid in sick-
ness and need, thouph scattered throughout the country and
in the new town of Evansville were a number of well-to-do
people among the better class of natives from Kentucky,
Pennsylvania, ^Maryland, New York, and other Atlantic coast
States. Ten or twenty miles, even, did not prevent intimacy
between congenial neighbors.
The Ingles, Maidlows, Hornbrooks, Wheelers, Erskines,
Hillyards, McJohnsons, and others were the center of the
circle of the settlement, and were the nucleus of a social com-
munity, drawing to it others more remote, representing in
the generation then young, large families of men and women
who spoke the English language in its purity and preserved
the best traditions of the social, intellectual and moral life
of England.
Faux says at the beginning there were no schools in the
settlement, and recommends to the English teachers a good
opportunity at a good salary for that time. The first adver-
tisement in the Evansville Gazette of a teacher for pupils
was by Andrew Erskine,"' in which he stated his terms and
the character of his school. He was an educated man, and
a leading citizen in the county. A description of educational
opportunities in the twenties and the resorts of ambitious
people to overcome obstacles in that direction is later fur-
nished by a member of one of the pioneer families, then a
youth :'="
III that now country. wIut*' tluTe \ven» m» l>«»oks. ,nnl uewsp.ipora were
very mre. oiiportiiiilHes for o<1u(':itioii wore very |K>or iii(U'«Hl ; Imt father
jind mother. esiKM-ially the latter, were anxious for the pn>niotion ami edu-
cation of their diildren. Stiniuliited l)y lier preivitt. we all early ac<mlred
a taste for hooks. We snbs<Tilte(l for wivkly ]mi»ers very early, and sup-
plie<l onrs<'lves with what few s<liooI hooks could l>e obtaine<l, and went to
Hcbool. a few months each wintiT in tlie iiiiprovis4>d rude c.ihins. which
were called .school-houses in tho.so rude days. But, In fact, our education
was ohtaine<l more at home, from the s<'anty supply of lM>oks we had. and
from our ai)plication. and by stimulatiug each other. One of the sources of
"• E^•an9^■^le Oasetle. March 11. 1823.
*» Hiator]/ of Yanderburffh County (B. & F.), 355.
Igh'hart: Coming of the Knylish to Indiana 155
education and Ktiinuhitiiiii was tlu- early Mi'tluHllst |.rt>u.li«Th. win. found
thflr way a« wi-ll to tlic wild w«hh!s of \Varri<k county, as fVfrywlifrf in
this rountry wliioli Iuih lK?f*n rwK-biHl liy civilization. Tlu*y were tttMicnilly
bt'tter wlunitttl tiian most of tin* iKtiplc in the country then were, und they
stiniulatiHl us to stH*k for iH'ttcr «slufation:il o|ii»ortunitics ; and though
none of us ever went to colle>re we obtained all the eiltication which wa«
attainable in those early days without roIiik to college.
Gradually schools were established, but the terms were
short : sometimes, not always, competent teachers were
found ; among the leaders of the English settlement, in the
families of which were some older children who had received
some education in England, and where the parents were
educated people, there was a good supply of English books
and especial care was taken to furnish the best substitute
in the home for schools before they became effective else-
where.
As there had been no church built in this settlement,
various leading settlers, including Hornbrook, Ingle, Ers-
kine, the Hillyards, and others, would invite a minister whom
any of them could get, to come to his house to hold services
on Sunday, If he could not get anyone to come, as they were,
other than the Wheelers, Joseph and Richard, and Parrett,
few and far between, he would himself read a sermon from
some English book of sermons, and the reading was followed
by prayer and song service. There were at that early period
eight or ten Unitarian families in the neighborhood, who
were sometimes called Schismatics or Christians.
True to frontier life west of the mountains as it existed
at the time of which we write, especially religious influences
and development in this section, is the account of Peter Cart-
wTight,'-' a Methodist preacher of national reputation, in
later life. He was a striking character. He was without cflu-
cation, but gifted with natural power of oratory, of un-
doubted sincerity and piety, with qualities of leadership, in-
cluding the element of fearless courage, which a leader of the
time required. Humorous incidents are told of his policing
his public religious meetings in Kentucky to prevent rowdies
from breaking them up. He had personally, as a member of
*^ Autobioffraphy of Peter Cartxcright.
156 Indiana Muijazine of Histoi-y
the Green River district of the Tennessee conference, estab-
lished the St. Vincennes circuit in 1808.'-- This circuit in-
cluded southwestern Indiana.
Rev. John Schrader, the circuit rider, as early as 1815'-''
traveled that circuit, embracing the entire Patoka river val-
ley south of the present line of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad,
and extending from the Wabash river eastwardly to and per-
haps including Harrison county.
Rev. Joseph Wheeler and Robert Parrett knew Cart-
wright well. In their training and education in England they
were free from the narrow limitations which the spirit of the
age in the frontier west then imposed upon the natives, and
upon many of the leaders born and reared among them. It
seems now almost like fiction to read the serious lament of
Peter Cartwright,'-^ when in his old age, a unique and cele-
brated character, with a long and successful career behind
him, he criticises an educated ministry, literary institutions
and theological institutes. He says:
The rreshyterians and other Cnlvanistio branches of the Protestant
ihnrch use«l to <-onten(l for an e<UK'ated ministry, for pews, for instru-
mental music, for a con>.'r('pitioiml or stated sjilaried ministry: the illit-
(•rate Metlio«list prea<-hers actually set the world on tire (the American
world at least), while they were 1i;:htinp their matches.
He condemns the Wesleyans in England for the same rea-
sons, insisting that such practices were a departure from the
teachings of John Wesley.
Parrett and the Wheelers, who were Wesleyans in Eng-
land, had none of this spirit. Neither had the leaders of the
settlement any of the narrow or bigoted or rowdy spirit
which to some extent prevailed in various quarters among
the natives of this section.
For half a century in southern Indiana many of the pio-
neer preachers struggled in a tragic and losing fight against
the spirit of the age, which has at last succeeded in that de-
nomination, in its demand for an educated ministry.'-'
'^ AutDhiOfjraphj/ of prtrr Cnrturtght (lxr.6), 131. 141-167.
»= //isforj/ of Warrick Countu (188r>). p. 124.
'»* Hiopraphu of I'rter Cnrtirright, p. 79.
'* For an Illustration of that flght. upon the entrance Into the Infliana Con-
ference of the M. E. Church, of the first gra'Jvjate of the first Methodist college of
Iglehart: ComiiKj of the En^jlish to Indiana 157
A thrilling flight of natural oratory was heard by the
writer in an address by Hayden Hays, an old, white-haired,
superannuated preacher on the floor of the Indiana confer-
ence nearly fifty years ago, discussing the transfers of min-
isters from other conferences into the best pulpits of the con-
ference, thus to some extent shutting out of those pulpits the
old leaders who had heroically spent their lives in building up
the civilization of the State.
It was by the Rev. John Schrader, the circuit rider, that
the first regular, organized religious public .services, of which
local history has any record, were held, in what is now kno\s'Ti
as Vanderburgh county, in Hugh McGary's double log ware-
house. By him, in 1819, arrangement was made at that
meeting with the Wheelers and Parrett, Methodist ministers,
who resided in the settlement, to preach regularly, in his ab-
sence, in Evansville.'-"
John Ingle, of Saundersville, though not a minister, like
Hornbrook, led services in his own house, and Faux records
his reading a sermon and leading in prayer at service on
Sunday, attended by sixteen people.^'-' Also the Wheelers,
Erskines, Hillyards, Igleharts, and others did the same. The
following extract is taken from the minutes of the church
board of Hillyard Methodist Episcopal church:
III the early piirt of tlie iiiuetinMitb oeiitiiry. whon the surroiimlins
(t)imtry w:is beiuK oix'iietl up ami .»<ettleii by pioneer settlers from tbe
mother country and the east, came tbe desire to have .some place to wor-
ship (IikI. according to their religious belief. So it was agn»ed by these
early pi«)neers to hold their meetings at the home of old F.ither Charles
Mi-.Iobnson. whenever a preacher might be passing through the country.
The first who preached there was Jos«>ph Tarkingtou,'-** who usjtl the
text. "They shall go In and out and lind pa.sture." These meetings were
held here otvaslonally until the spring of 1S24.
With the spring of isi.'4 came the organization of the so-calb"*! Hlue
(Irass s<K'lety at tbe home of Mark Wlnvler. who was for a time class
111.- State. Bee Introduction to tli.- Autobiogrtiphy of Rtv. Joseph Tarkitiffton by
Rev. Thomaii A. (Joodwin. I>. D. Wiillo In form an introduction. It Is In sub-
Bt:inc<- an autobloKTuphy of Dr. Goodwin. «upi>lem<'ntln(f that of Mr. Turklnifton.
with moBt Intt-rt-BtlnK and amusing descriptions of ploneor times and jMoplt- In
•outhem Indiana.
^Hutory uf Vanderbtirph County ( B. & P.). 278.
'"Thwaltes. Karly Weateru Truvela. XI. 239. 285.
'* S«e note 60.
158 In<iiana Magazine of Histoi-y
leader and at whoso home the inet'tliiKs of the ehiss aixl iirea<-hinK services
were held. At this time the territory was In the Illinois conference. Wa-
bash district. I'aloka circuit. This dnuit had thirty-two aii|K>lntnu'nts
and was serve«I hy two preaihers Ihin;; at rriiiceton. lOach made a round
everj- four weeks. The class niet>tinKs in those days were held Invariably
after i>reaclilnp s*»rvices.
In isiM", three years after the organization, the mef'tin;: place of the
f^H-iety was transferre<l to the home of William Ilillyard. .^r.. and con-
tinue<l at this i>lace until the year \s:U. when the society built a hewed
log house 1N> X 1.'4 feet anil coveretl it with clapboards. The first seats
were nunid |>oles. after a thne theH> were replacnl with improved seats
m.ide by .sjilittin;: small logs in the center, shaving off the splinters with a
drawing knife, boring boles in the bark side, inst^rting shari)en«nl jiUves of
timbers into these holes. These seats were known as l)enches. This church
had five windows, two on each side, and one behind the pulpit. This building
stood on a rise of grouixl near the cemetery. The .society ci»ntinu(Ml to
worship in Ibis inde structure until IS.M. when the set-ond house, which Is
still usoil. was built on ground one-half mile south of the cemetery.
The first class leader was M.-irk Wheeler. There were eighteen per-
sons belonging to this <las.s. Orher cl.iss leaders, who h.id done estimable
service, were .Tosepli Harrison. Alexander Hillyard. Sr.. William Crisp,
Henry Harrison and Thon)as Hillyard.
From the best Information that can be gained, the first Sunday School
was organi/.e<1 in is;{.s in the ohl log cliunb. There were twenty niendiers
Itelonging to this s.-hool. Alexan«ler llillyanl. Sr.. was the first superin-
tendent. Tlie Smiday School in those days memorized a great amount of
Scripture.
The McJohnson ^lethodist Episcopal chapel was located
at McCutchanville, about three miles south of Hillyard
church, at an early date, and these two churches have for
many years sustained a stationed minister in a church par-
sonage located at McCutchanville. A Methodi.st church was
erected near Saundersville at a point where the church ceme-
tery now known as the Inple cemetery is located, but the
church building was later removed.
The Episcopalians had a church in the settlement, and as
late as 1850 one was known as Faux's chapel. Whether
named in honor of William Faux, the early historian of the
settlement, or one of his de.scendants, history does not state.
It has di.'^appeared.
There were among the various settlers representatives of
many religious denominations. The Established church of
England had a good representation. Whatever the former
Iglehaii: Coming of the English to Indiana 159
religious attlliations of the settlers had been in the old coun-
try, Wesleyanism, through the Hillyards, McJohnsons,
Wheelers, Parretts, Erskinos, and other members of the settle-
ment, as well as the circuit rider, who passed throu^^h the set-
tlement at stated periods, firmly established Methodism in the
beginning of Vanderburgh county's existence. For years that
church very largely pre-empted the soil and the people with
it, in the north half of the county. The burial ground at
McCutchanville church, one at Hillyard church, one near
Saundersville, now known as the Ingle cemetery, the Episco-
pal cemetery, and the Camp Ground cemetery, e.stablished
later than the others, ranked in the above order, first of the
earliest cemeteries in the county in the number of graves of
the pioneers of the first decade of the settlement of the county.
Among the incidents preserved which show the close
touch of some of the immigrants with John Wesley during
his ministry in England and Ireland are the following:
Elizabeth Wheeler (1781-1870), wife of Rev. Joseph Wheeler,
was born at Witney, Oxfordshire, England, daughter of John
and Elizabeth Early, of Witney. John Wesley was a regular
visitor at her mother's home in Witney. When but a small
child, she sat on Mr. Wesley's knee and recited one of the
longest psalms. Elizabeth Hillyard (1760-1845), widow of
John Hillyard, of Longford, Ireland, was left by her husband
at his death a retail store in Longford, which she continued
for some years. When the youngest of her four sons, James,
William, John and Alexander, was about grown, she came in
1818 with them to America and this was the original Hill-
yard family of the Blue Grass neighborhood. Her husband,
John Hillyard, was one of the first Wesleyan class leaders in
Longford. Both she and her husband knew John Wesley.
On one occasion as a girl she wore to church a bow of bright
ribbon on her bonnet, and Mr. Wesley remarked, "It is a bow
upon Bessie?" This was understood by all to be a reproof
to the young lady for undue gaiety in dress.
Reference is el.sewhere made to Rev. Joseph Wheeler and
Rev. Robert Parrett, two men cast in the same mold, whose
influence for good in the new settlement and for a much wider
territory, was very great. Their influence upon the young
ino Indiatia Magazine of History
men of the settlement was very marked. To their influence,
especially the former, in a threat degree may be traced the
education of a number of young men in the families men-
tioned, to the ministry. Among these native ministers were
James and William Ingle, sons, and John Cowle, nephew, of
John Ingle, of Saundersville, and William and Henry
Wheeler, sons of Mark Wheeler; James, son of John Hillyard,
and Thomas Walker and John Harrison. John W. Parrett,
eldest son of Rev. Robert Parrett, was an active minister.
All of these were Methodists except Thomas Walker, who was
resident pastor of the Cumberland Presbyterian church at
Owcnsville, Indiana, for a generation. So that before these
older ministers had passed their vigor, there arose among
these families a native ministry, the earliest in that section.
Some of them remained in the settlement, rendering good
service to the community in furnishing public service at a
time when it was much needed. Some of them dedicated their
lives wholly to the ministry and passed out into the wider
world. None of them are now living.
Economic Conditions
One of the criticisms made against emigration to this
immediate section was that the country was wet, undrained,
malarial and subject to fevers. The picture by Faux of
Evansville, at the time he visited it in November, 1819, is an
unfavorable one. On that subject he says:'-'-'
VIsltetl Kvnnsvllle ou the bliiflfs of the Ohio. lU-hiiul it is an almost
Im|ias.><4ible road throuub a sickly swamp, none of which uear the road Is
yet cnltivat«Ml. It s<H'ms t<Kj wet. Here I met a few Kn^llsh me<-liauic-s
re>;rctliii.c tiiey had left Kn^laiid. where tliey tliink tliey coui<l do l)etter.
The Evansville Gazette^'-'" contains an editorial statement
on the subject of the health of Evansville, to the effect that
it was "tolerably healthful." Between the lines may be seen
that the writer felt that there had perhaps been some foun-
dation at least, at some time, for the charge of unhealthy
location.
»»Thwalt08. Early Western Travets, I. 292.
»»• Issue of Sopt. 9. 1824.
Igh'hart: Coming of the Englii^h to Indiana 161
At the time of the discovery of the "Salt Wells," on
Pigeon creek near Evansville, the Gazette issued an editorial
prospectus of the town, claiming almost perfect health
in it.'^'i
But Evansville itself, located about half a mile east of
the mouth of Pigeon creek, lay on very high ground, and
above the highest water, even up to the present time ; but on
all three sides away from the river, the ground retreated until
it was low, and at the time mentioned, it was entirely un-
drained. The same may be said of what is now Knight town-
ship on the east, as well as Union and Perry townships on the
west and south. These lowlands, which have since become
drained and are healthy for residence probably as much as
the higher ground, were at the time standing in water much
of the year.
Naturally the most inviting location for a settler, health
considered, was the high ground beginning on what was
afterwards the state road, which started in Evansville, ex-
tended northwardly across Pigeon creek near Anthony or
Negley's mill, to Princeton and Vincennes. Fron Pigeon
creek, near the present northern boundary of Evansville,
north for the whole distance to the north line of the settle-
ment, the ground was well drained and rolling, and the view
was picturesque, especially the backbone of hills occupied by
Mechanicsville (Stringtown), near the southern line of the
settlement. This was at the beginning occupied by early
settlers, some of English birth, including the Walkers, some
of English ancestry, all with English sympathies, which
united them in many ways with members of the settlement
itself.
The tracts selected by the Hornbrooks, Maidlows and
Ingle were located close together, and a great majority of
the fifty-six families mentioned by Faux in his book written
in November, 1819, were located so closely to the land so se-
lected that the settlement was very compact. There were,
however, at the same time and immediately afterwards other
settlers properly included within the colony who settled over
>« E\an«\ille Gatette, Aug. 27, 1823.
1G2 Indiana Magazine of History
i\w line in Gibson county on the north, Posey on the west, and
Warrick on the east, all, however, within a radius of ten or
fifteen miles, most of it much nearer.
In Aujrust. 1819, three months before Faux's visit to John
Tnple, Richard Flower wrote a letter'-'- from the Illinois set-
tlement, jriving some definite idea of its extent and numbers,
in which he says:
On ;i inut of liiiul troiii tlu> i.ittit' Wiilmsli to tlit> Hoiip.-is on the
Grent W;ib;isb. iibout sovoiite<»ii iiiilrs in wUltli. nntl four to six from north
to st»uth. there were but .1 few IniuttTs' r.ibins. :i ye.ir .•iiul a hiilf Hlnce. and
now there Jire }ilM)ut sixty Kujilish fliiuilies. rontainiutf nearly four hun-
(lre<l sotils; and one humlred ami tifty Auieriiaii. containing: about s<'ven
hundred souls, who like the English for their neighbors, and manjr of
whom are good neighbours to ua
The central part of the English and Irish location, some six
miles east of Saundersville, included the Wheelers, Hillyards,
Erskines and McJohnsons, who settled there early. The Hill-
yards and McJohnsons were there before Faux arrived. The
Erskines arrived at Evansville by an ark Christmas day,
1819, just as Faux was preparing to leave the country. Faux
did not meet any of these persons, and his observations are
confined substantially to those persons whom he met in the
immediate neighborhood of John Ingle's residence, and in
Evansville, where he visited a short time. He speaks, how-
ever, of the people in the settlement as the "British, "'•''•' thus
recognizing what was the fact, that the settlement properly
embraced not only the English, but the Irish and a few
Scotch, who came about the same time, and were for all pra«-
tical purposes one with the English.
The soil upon which the central settlement was made was
not of the best. In fact, the timber upon it would have indi-
cated that fact to a farmer familiar with judging soil cov-
ered with timber. This criticism was made by Judge Mc-
Creary, as.sociate judge of the circuit court, to Mr. Faux, who
quotes him in a talk he had with Hornbrook himself, which,
the judge said, Hornbrook did not relish.
The location of the Indiana settlement, with Saundersville
"> Spark.o. Enplish Settlement in the Illinois, letter 2. p. 24.
•"Thwaltts. Early Wr.tlrrn Travrl.i. XI. '.'9."
Iglehart: Cominu of the English to Indiana 163
as its center, shows that the ^reat body of the settlement oc-
cupied less space than that given by Richard Flower for the
Illinois settlement. The great body of the settlers were in a
circle of not over one-half the radius of the larger circle de-
scribed. Its borders were e.xtended so as to include the Par-
rett location across the county line in Posey county on the
west, and the extension into Campbell township, Warrick
county on the east, and to Warrenton, in Gibson county, on
the north, and to include Mechanicsville on the south as far
as Negley's mill, at the foot of the hill and ridge on which
Mechanicsville is located and where the extreme southern
boundary of the settlement terminated. Here the Walkers
and others lived.
The Kentucky backwoodsmen were inclined by preference
to select the lower lands in what is now Knight township and
Union township, which at the present time are the finest
agricultural lands in the county. The same preference was
given by the same class of farmers to the lands in Gibson
county and Posey county, much of which is the finest agricul-
tural soil in this section, and one of the finest agricultural
sections in the central west.
Cobbett'-'* describes the land of the New Harmony settle-
ment in Posey county as being as rich as a dung hill. One ex-
ception to the other Englishmen in selecting the location for
the settlement was Robert Parrett, who came about the same
time as the other leaders mentioned, but who stopped a year
or two in New Jersey before coming to Indiana. He settled
at or near what is now Blairsville, in Posey county, in 1819,
and about ten miles distant from Saundersville, where the
soil was of a superior character. Here he remained some five
or six years and here some of his children, including the late
William F. Parrett, circuit judge and member of congress,
were born. In 1825 he moved with his family to his location
of the Parrett home.stead, embracing a hundred and sixty
acres of land, then adjoining Evansville on the south and
southeast, which is now a solidly built up portion of the city,
including one of the finest residence streets. Much of this he
•** l^lndly, Indiana as nem fci/ Early Trnx'eters, 514.
164 Indiana Magazine of History
retained till his death, leaving to his children a large estate,
in the land alone.
The English settlement had no definite limits, but extended
as its settlers moved around, and from the beginning its mem-
bers drifted towards Evansville, along the high and rolling
ground in the general neighborhood of the state road, located
previous to 1819.
When the state road in Vanderburgh county was im-
proved, the stations, of two miles in length each, embraced
in separate descriptions for clearing timber and road build-
ing, were identified in their termini by stakes in the fields
of the English settlers from Pigeon creek to the Gibson
county line.i^''
The road back of Evansville to Pigeon creek was, in 1819,
when Faux described it, low and swampy, or at least un-
drained of standing water, and much of the land through
which it ran was untenable for healthy residence. So, in-
deed, was much of the best land in the county. The de-
scription by early travelers, including* Fearon, Faux and
others, lays great stress upon the matter of health and the
neighborhood of extensive undrained lands, which properly
disqualified it for residence of men and their families, who
were entering a new life of supreme hardships. In this fact,
greater than any other, may be found the explanation why
the Hornbrooks, Ingle, Maidlows, Scott, Kennerly, Hillyards,
Wheelers, Erskines and later comers, settled land not of the
best soil. It compares unfavorably with the land lying lower,
especially now when all of it is drained and in cultivation.
Faux visited Evansville for a day in November, 1819,
meeting several of the prominent citizens who called upon
him. As already mentioned, he says Judge McCreary com-
plained greatly of the choice of land made by the British here.
He wonders they could not better inform themselves, because
when they came there was plenty of good land to be had and
if not in bodies, yet in sections and in half sections. "The
soil," he said, "is as thin as a clap-board or bear-skin. I
would not give one of my quarter sections for all of the neigh-
»» E\-anrvme Oasette, July 13. 1822, Advt. for proposals.
Iglehart: Cominy of the English tu Indiana 165
borhood of the barrens." (The term "barrens," as then used,
did not apply to arid soil, but rather to land which was not
covered by tall timber.) "They must have been deceived by
speculators, but all the English must herd together."'^"
In this Judge McCreary was wrong. As stated, the orig-
inal location was made in this section by Saunders Horn-
brook, Jr., who came into the wilderness alone, and made his
selection, probably without much knowledge of the nature of
the soil, as he had not been a farmer in the old country.
It is true that Samuel Scott lived in this neighborhood
before Hornbrook came. At Scott's house were held all the
elections in that township, during his life, and they continued
to be held there at the house of his widow, after his death,
about 1825 or 182G.
Carlisle and Kennerly were on the ground, Kennerly at
the north end of Mechanicsville, Carlisle farther north,
toward the settlement, as afterwards located, and while he
does not refer to the fact, it is not unlikely that Saunders
Hornbrook, Jr., was influenced in some degree by these men,
who were rugged, intelligent Englishmen, and as stated else-
where, afterwards became part of the settlement.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Saundersville settle-
ment was not located in the most fertile section, and that
health of the location had much to do with its selection, a
hundred years of cultivation and good farming have made
the original location of the English settlement a location of
good farms at the present time.
The first high ground north of Evansville on the line of
travel to Princeton and Vincennes begins across Pigeon
creek ; here it rises abruptly so high and steep that the road
from Pigeon creek near Negley's mill up to Mechanicsville at
the top of the hill was over one-half mile long and .so steep the
entire distance that in the old time of dirt roads, it was an
object of much solicitude to travelers. Northwardly extends
the backbone of the ridge, furnishing a beautiful view of the
hills and valleys for many miles, and on this ridge was lo-
cated Mechanicsville, over a mile in length. Along this high
•"Thwaltes, Early Western Travels, XI, 1:95.
166 Imluuia Mauazinc of History
ground the state road, after it was located, was changed to go
through the Saundersville settlement, forking at the north
end of Mechanicsville easterly in the Petersburg road. This
road went through the McCutchanville, Earles, Hillyard
church and the Wheeler settlements, where, as in the case of
the state road, the English and Irish settlers had blazed the
way.
From the beginning, contemporaneously with the settle-
ment of Evansville on the one side, and the Saundersville,
McCutchanville and Hillyard settlements on the other, on ac-
count of its superior location for health, its proximity to the
perennial Pigeon creek, and its nearness to the Ohio river,
and itself lying on the direct road to Princeton and Vincennes
from the river, Mechanicsville was an important center of
activity and population. It was, so to speak, a connecting
link between Evansville and the English settlement.
Here was one of the first meeting-houses for religious and
educational uses built in the county (1832). It is still stand-
ing and in use, as the village church, in excellent condition,
though eighty-seven years old, and now the oldest church
building in the county.
At the south end and part of Mechanicsville, opposite
Negley's mill, was a small village which has wholly disap-
peared.'•'"
Mechanicsville was a competitor with Evansville for the
county seat of Vanderburgh county in 1818. It is stated that
in the 30's, the citizens of Evansville had to go to Mechanics-
ville for first class blacksmithing and wagon-making. Here,
in the early 30's, John Ingle, Jr., learned his trade as a cab-
inet-maker. Here later settled Dr. Lindley, one of the leading
men of the county, also the Whittlesey family, long promi-
nent citizens of the county, as well as of the city of Evans-
ville : still later the McGhees, Olmsteads, Woods and others.
Mechanicsville has always been and still is a well-.settled
community, and today is thickly settled with well-built
houses, and in addition, on account of its superb location, has
become a popular place of suburban residences of Evansville
people.
'« Elliott. History of randerbtirgh Count}/, 94.
IgU'hart: Comituj of the Kiiglish to Indiana 167
The subject of water was then of ^^reat importance to a
settler seeking a farm location. A running stream upon the
land was regarded as of threat value. The elder Hornbrook
calls attention to this advantajre of the location of the settle-
ment, in one of his letters. Faux's description of the dilliculty
of some of the farmers in getting water for their families
and stock is both amusing and tragic' '"^ George Flower's
history of the Prairie settlement in Illinois, mentions the fact
of the difficulty of procuring water at one time, when repre-
sentatives of much of the village stood in line with buckets
for two hours at night, being supplied from a well which he
had dug.'^i*
The extreme eastern line of the settlement was from Pigeon
creek, a point selected by the elder Igleheart and others in-
cluding the Lockyears as a water supply. This creek runs
north through Campbell township in Warrick county, some
fifteen miles east of Saundersville ; so that he was on the east-
ern edge of the settlement around which, however, a dozen
English families, including the Lockyears, then and later
settled. All of his three sons, and two of his four daughters
married members of the British settlement. Christopher
Lockyear, a brother-in-law of the senior Maidlow, came over
with him in 1818. In 1918, at a reunion of his descendants in
Evansville, one hundred of them were present.
Pigeon creek, as the source of unfailing water supply, was
at the beginning regarded as one of great importance. Saun-
ders Hornbrook, Sr., in the letter referred to, speaks of the
landing of his son at Pigeon creek, rather than at Evansville.
A number of the travelers, in referring to the location, give
importance to the existence of Pigeon creek as a well-knowTi
stream of water. As late as 1835 it is said the most serious
inconvenience that people of Evans\nlle suffered was the
want of good water, and that the Ohio river water was all
that could be obtained till that time. The first cistern was
then built by Ira French, who had bought the patent right
to build cisterns in Vanderburgh county.*-"'
•■ThwaltfB. Harly Wtatern Travels, XI. 266.
»*• George V. Flower, History of Kdwiirda County. III., 131.
•*• Rlley, History of Walnut Street Church. Evanaville. 26.
168 Indiana Magazine of History
An examination of the records of the county commission-
ers of Vanderburgh county, which had jurisdiction in the es-
tablishment, maintenance and repair of roads, shows very
clearly that there was universal interest among the first set-
tlers in the establishment of roads in this part of the wilder-
ness. Roads, when established, were for a long period not
much more than blazed trails, and the best that could be done
in the way of laying out and improving a road was cutting
off the heavy timber, which usually left stumps around which
the road was compelled to run. So long as the adjoining
forest was uncleared, good drainage was impossible, and it
was many years before good wagon or carriage roads were
established.
The cost of hauling was so great as to be prohibitive of
transportation of heavy material. Faux says that fifty cents
was the usual price of carriage for one hundred pounds of
corn for over twenty miles, sometimes higher, never lower.
One bushel of corn weighed from fifty to fifty-six pounds, so
that if it was hauled by weight, it would not pay the carriage
for twenty miles. He says that Ferrel, a man of experience
and discernment, stated that he would not fetch corn from
Princeton, twenty miles off, as a gift, if he could grow it, nor
would he carr\' it to the Ohio for sale, because it would not
pay carriage and expenses. When, if ever, they will have
surplus produce, he will give it to the pigs and cattle, which
will walk to market. ^^' Again he says:
Yesterday a settler passed our door (In;;Io's) with a bushel of com-
inoal on his hack, for \vhl<'h ho had travele<l twenty miles on foot to the
nearest horse-mill, and carried it ten ndles. paying .seventy-tive cents for It.
Almost the first acts of organized government of Vander-
burgh county were the receiving of petitions for the opening
of public roads, appointing viewers to pass upon the question
of public utility, and to investigate and lay them out, and
making orders establishing roads. After a road was estab-
lished in the country districts, the question of its mainte-
nance became important ; a road supervisor was appointed
and assigned to a specified portion or length of road. Some-
"' ThwRlte*. Early WfBtrrn Travrl.t, XI. 291.
Igh'haH: Cominy of the English to Indiami 169
times one road in the county, of lenj?th, would be embraced
within the jurisdiction of several supervisors. To the super-
visor was assigned the inhabitants sometimes by name, some-
times by a general description of locality, living within the
territory of his district, near the particular highway which
they, by law, were required to work. It was the duty of the
supervisor to call upon all the able-bodied inhabitants to work
the roads, and, in case of their failure to do so, to collect from
them sufficient cash to hire a substitute.
So great was the interest of everyone in the proper mainte-
nance of these highways of travel, that the leading citizens
of the county, without exception, were willing to accept the
appointment of road supervisor. This was true of all of the
leading men named. This was in some respects the most im-
portant public position and nearest to the real interests of the
community, although the pay was trifling. The proportion of
county busine.ss embraced within this routine of work was
so great for the first ten years as to indicate that it was of the
greatest importance to the people and to the county commis-
sioners, who had charge of it. There is no more reliable
record of the names of citizens in particular localities, at a
particular time, than is to be found in the enumeration of
inhabitants for working roads in the particular road districts.
More voluminous, however, were the "Estray notices."
The stock law was severe to protect stock from thieves. When
a settler took up a horse, cow or hog, the law required him
to go before the nearest justice with two neighbors and
make an appraisement and give notice before the justice, who
transmitted the paper, usually a single small sheet, to the
clerk's office.
In preparing the list of English families in this settle-
ment at fixed dates, this mass of contemporary record, each
paper containing four names, with the date and the township
located, enabled the writer, with his own knowledge and the
aid of James Maidlow and James Erskine, to make out, with
other aids, a sub.stantially correct record.
The relative importance of the English .settlement to other
parts of the county during its first decade may in .some meas-
ure be estimated by the amount of time and records devoted
170 Indiana Magazine of History
by the county commissioners to the roads of that portion of
the county, as compared to other portions. Upon such a com-
parison it appears that the northern part of the county, in
which this settlement was located, was much farther ad-
vanced in the opening, existence and improvements of high-
ways than the other parts of the county. That part of the
county was more thickly settled than was the southern part.
Saundersvillc was located in a central part of the settlement.
It is described as *'a nourishing post town in Vanderburgh
county in 1826.'^'- In 1833 the same authority described it
as **a small post village in Vanderburgh county ten miles
north of Evansville." Soon afterwards it ceased to exist.
It had, in the early twenties, among other interests, several
stores, a mill, a warehouse and a number of houses occupied
as residences. There is now no trace of it to be seen in the
cultivated field where its location was formerly, and the exact
spot of its location cannot be pointed out by any one. The
recorded plat of the "town" unfortunately contains no refer-
ence to the section or part of section or other description, on
which the town was located.
The road records of the county show that August 9, 1819,
the State Road or Evansville and Princeton road was changed
to run "through the Main Street of Saundersville," and this
very definite north and .south line of the landmark remains
still the same. The New Harmony and Boonville road, built
in 1820 and 1821, was ordered in two sections, one from
"Man.sell's mill, Saundersville," to the Warrick county line,
to meet the proposed road to Boonville through Warrick
county, one from "the town of Saundersville to New Har-
mony, to strike the Posey county line," etc., at a point, etc.
If the road from Boonville to New Harmony has not been
changed, then the east and west landmark is also fixed, lo-
cating Saundersville in the .south part of Section 8. It is not
impossible that the variation of a quarter of a mile, more or
less, might in those times have been regarded as of little im-
portance in descriptions. In fact, roads were not usually sur-
veyed, but located by the judgment of road viewers who
chose the "best route" between the termini.
•♦^ Scott. The Indiana Gazeteer, 103.
Iglehart: Coming of the Ryigliah to Indiana 171
Vanderburgh county at the time of the English settle-
ment was located in a dense wilderness, the trees were of
enormous height and size. For half a century Evansville has
been called the hardwood lumber market of the world, result-
ing from the extent of the forests and size of trees, tropical
in size, in this section, where the grain of the wood gives the
lumber a finer quality than in timber grown south of the tem-
perate zone. Clearings by the settlers were often as little as
six or seven acres the first year, and gradually increased.
John Ingle, at the end of the first year, when Faux visited
him, had cleared seventeen acres, and was continuing the
work, doing much of his own work in person.
Hogs were raised, half wild, in the woods on mast, with
little expense, and pork was always in demand, one of the
most available articles for use in exchange and barter, a sub-
stitute for money.'^-' Saunders Hornbrook, Sr., established
a pork house for cutting and curing the meat, the earliest in
the settlement, and like many others, made one or more trips
by flat boat to New Orleans,
Bears and wolves, when very hungry, would eat the hogs
alive, and it was not uncommon for a hog to come home with
the loss of a pound or two of flesh bitten from it. Cattle,
hogs and sheep could only be certainly raised successfully by
keeping them in an enclosure at night, Mrs. Crawford Bell,
daughter of David Negley, described an exciting scene in her
youth, when a gang of wolves in daylight chased two cows
past her, when she and her sister w^ere riding horseback,
making her horse run aw^ay, fortunately not throwing its
riders among the wolves. Before aid could be given, the
wolves had overtaken, killed and partly eaten the cows.**-*
One of the early settlers is quoted in a local history as stating
that wolves were so bad in the 20's that settlers could not
raise pigs enough to furnish their pork, and could not keep
sheep at all.'^' Faux records that during the few days he, in
'"John N. True»d«*ll in ii notlcv dated S«*pt. _', piihllahed Oft. 28. advertised
that between the 15th and 2 5th of November, 1822, lie would exchange aalt for
p<jrk at Jones and Harrison's store In Evansville. Kvansville Gatette, Oct. 28,
1822.
'"GilUrt. Ilistoru of Vandtrbur<jh Cuunty. I. 54.
»• (B. ft F.). History of Vanderburffh County, 355.
172 Indiana Ma(jazine of History
company with John Injirle, visited the Birkbeck and Flower
Prairie settlement in Illinois, in November, 1819, a Rang of
wolves in daylight attacked a large llock of sheep which was
guarded by a shepherd, killing fifty before they could be
driven off.'"'- He also records a visit of one day and night to
"Evansville on the bluffs of Ohio," and remarks "the wolves
last night howled horribly and prowled into town."'^' Wild
cats and panthers were very common and fierce and an enemy
to any stock, and were known to follow persons in the woods,
when visiting, from one house to another. Bears were very
common and easily killed with the rifle, and their meat was
very highly valued. At Faux's first meal in the settlement, at
the house of John Ingle, bear meat was served to him, and by
him very highly appreciated.' •*'^ Deer meat was most plen-
tiful and the meat was highly valued. Venison was taken by
the merchants in payment of debts due them, and for goods
sold by them.!-*"
The native hunters, as a rule, took only the hide and hind
quarters of the deer, leaving the remainder in the woods to
be devoured quickly by wolves and other wild beasts. Forty
years later, deer were still to be found in the woods in all the
counties in southern Indiana. From White river to the Ohio
river along the Wabash was a strip of wilderness in Gibson
and Posey counties, where they were to be found much later
and are still occasionally seen and easily killed when driven
out of the river bottoms by the high water floods.
Faux paid $4.00 for a bear skin in 1819, worth, he said,
four pounds in England, and the fine hair of one he carried
back to England to be converted into wigs for his friend,
Rev. John Ingle, the patriarch of Somersham.'''"
There were in the settlement native hunters always ready
to hunt up stock which frequently strayed off and was lost;
such a one would take his rifle and sometimes be gone sev-
eral days, generally bringing back the lost stock. The Lock-
year brothers, whose father came from England with the
'•• Thw.-iltos, Early Western Travel*. XI, 268.
»" Id. 292.
'"/d., 225.
'• Evansvlllo (;nzettr, J,^n. H. 1S24.
"•Thwaltes. Earlu Western Travels, XI. 292.
lijli'hart: Comituj of the En(jli,^li to In/liana 173
Maidlows, were, like many of their neighbors, good hunters
as well as farmers.
The controlling idea in the structure of the houses in
which most of these first settlers in the wilderness lived, as
well as its furnishings, was perfect economy of money, which
at times was almost unknown. Gold and silver were a great
rarity, seldom .seen, and paper money, also scarce, was very
unreliable in its rating, and in the purchase of the necessaries
of life people learned to do without money. So it was in
house building. Birkbeck's first log house cost him $20.00.
Iron, lead, glass, .salt, and rifles could not be made in this .sec-
tion, and were very costly. Houses were built often without
nails or windows, and made of logs fitted by the axes and
raised by the settlers at hou.se raisings, which were great
social occasions. Faux thus de.scribes the log house of John
Ingle, of Saundersville, a picture of which "drawn from Ingle
Refuge, State of Indiana, U. S., by W. Faux," is the frontis-
piece in his book:^''
My frieud's log bouse a.s a first oue is the best I have seen, buving one
large room ami a chamber over it. to which you climintl Ijy a ladder. It
has at present no windows, but when the doors are shut the crevices
between the rough logs admit light and air enough above and below.
It is tive yards square and twenty feet high. At a little di-stance
stands a stable for two horses, a corn crib, pig sty Jind a store; for .store
kiH'ping is his intention, and it is a gdod one. Two beds in tlie room bt'iow
and line above lodge us.i"'-
Both wooden chimneys in the hou.se caught fire during
Faux's visit and threatened destruction of the house. The
house was heated by fireplaces large enough to hold large logs
and nearly a quarter of a cord of wood. The cabins were
sometimes built with opposite doors so that a horse could
haul the back log into the house in front of the fireplace. An
early settler describes the hou.ses in the entire .settlement in
his youth, in the 20's, from five to ten years after the time of
Faux's description, as follows:
The country was wiUl, ind»>i>d. 'riuTc were no mads, mere paths, no
wagon roads, no wagons to run in them, uud no bouses, but log cabins.
"' TliwaJtt's. Earlu Western TraveU. XI. 20.
»»'/d., 226.
174 Indiana Magazine of History
Thprp wore not more thiin one or two franip hotjscs in W.irrick connty.
Tlu' wh<>U> country \v:is a wildfrncss.'''^
The furnishings of the houses were in many cases very
primitive and showed the same ingenuity without money as
in building the houses, in devising tables, chairs, bedsteads,
and more often substitutes, formed by fastening boards or
timbers in the floor or walls. P^aux says:
I wont one niilo iuul a half to Inirrow fnun Mrs. m«lij:lit Williams six
tunil)Iors f(tr tin* us4« of onr <-oniin); Christinas party. Tliis stop was nec-
essary or our friends, the I>ons of the sottlenient, must drink out of tin
cupa or i»ots. Mrs. Williams is the widow of the whippt^l Yankee, whose
story I have related. [This Incident o<'cure<l in the Illinois Prairie settle-
ment. Williams was whipited on strong suspicion of being a thief. He died
In Kvansvllle later of his injuries reclevecl at the hands of repnlators.]
She lives in a house without a chimney. h;ivinp only a hole in the roof to
let oiit the smoke, a tiro l)einp made in any part. She was rather unwilling
fo lend those tumblers boiauso tboy came from Kngland and money could
not replace them If broken. She should e.xpect five dollars, though in i:ng-
Innd one dollar bought slx.i54
The records of Vanderburgh county show an indictment
against two young men of an English family for robbery of
the house of James Cawson, a neighbor. Cawson and his
wife were wealthy. They were one of the thirty-nine families
who sent Fearon to America. They brought from England
with them many of the household conveniences, practically
imknown in the wilderness of Indiana. And these, it was
charged, tempted the young men who broke into Cawson's
house and stole them. The items are described with much
detail in the indictment. It is interesting to note some of the
sequels of this affair. The defendants were acquitted of rob-
ber}', but their father was indicted, but later acquitted for
perjury in testifying at their trial. Cawson was indicted for
compounding a felony, whereby he got his goods back and
ceased to be interested in the prosecution. While an agree-
ment not to prosecute under these circumstances is prohibited
as against the policy of the law, it is believed, even in this
age, that police aid is more often sought to recover stolen
goods than to vindicate the majesty of the broken laws.
'-^ Historti of Vnudrrburfjh County (B. & F.), 355.
»"Thwait«8. Early Western Travels. XI, 300.
Igliliaii: Coming of the Englit^h to Indiana 175
When Cawson was placed upon his trial before a jury in the
Vanderburgh circuit court, he challen^^ed the whole array of
jurors and claimed the rij^ht to be tried by a jury de mediatate
liiiguar, that is to be tried as a foreij^ner, by a jury half
natives and half foreigners. This practice is rare and at the
present time practically unknown in Indiana. The court sus-
tained his challenjre and directed a jury to be empaneled,
half English and half natives, the former being taken from
the English settlement, among his neighbors, and Cawson
was acquitted. The names of the foreigners on the jury
were Alanson Baldwin, Saunders Hornbrook, Sr., Edmund
Maidlow, George Potts, William Mills, James Maidlow.
These individuals, including Cawson himself, all became citi-
zens, however, as soon as eligible, under the law at that time,
which required several years previous residence.
Nothing more clearly appears at this time than that suc-
cess by farmers in the wilderness, such as these men became,
required an adjustment to the conditions of frontier life.
These pioneers performed household and farm labor without
hired help, a life of closest economy and continued sacrifice.
The native laborers were, as a rule, more or less shiftless and
unreliable. Good land could be bought from the United
States at $2.00 per acre, later at $1.25 per acre, on payment
of one-fourth cash, the remainder on long time; so that a
thrifty and industrious man could easily make upon the land
the money to buy it, as the purchase price became due.
Therefore, with such opportunities, capable workers nat-
urally preferred by their labor to own their own land, instead
of working in service for others. Faux narrates an incident
when John Ingle hired a native preacher to do a job of car-
penter work of some magnitude at that time, and, trusting to
his cloth, paid him forty dollars in advance, but the man
refused to begin or do the work, but kept the money, while
his employer had no recourse, as the ■•preacher was irre-
sponsible at law, and he lost his money. It was exceptional
that there was any profit in hired labor on the farm under
the conditions as they existed at the beginning.
Women house servants became ipso facto members of the
family, on terms of equality or privileges with members of
176 Indiana Magazine of History
the family, and in a country where women were scarce,
chances of marriajre were plentiful and interfered with long
employments.
The life of these pioneers in the wilderness was, there-
fore, one of the hardest labor, involving the greatest sacri-
fice of convenience, comfort and pleasure. It was the severing
of ties of relationship and friendship, leaving organized so-
ciety and civilization behind them. To these men and women
who came from Great Britain, where orderly society and re-
strains of convention, as v%ell as of law, were properly es-
tablished, the change was a severe test.
The panic of 1818, already referred to, lasted for many
years, and checked the growth of Evansville for more than a
decade, checked also active emigration to the British settle-
ment. The reduction of the price of congress land from ^2.00
to .$1.25 per acre immediately destroyed land values and
ruined many people. The financial effect upon the country
was universal. New Orleans, which was practically the out-
let for the surplus product of this section, which could only
be carried by water, was affected by the panic, and had no
surplus money; from it this section had derived its specie.
The town of Saundersville, which had considerable life
during the first fev/ years of the settlement, disappeared and
before 1840 not an inhabitant lived in it.''"' Such was the
fate of many other platted towns. The town scheme of John
Ingle and his associates and the British settlement were en-
tirely different matters. The latter was a natural and suc-
cessful early settlement in Indiana, and the foundation of
much wider growth and influence. During the panic the
people did not suffer. They had plenty to eat, the women
made the clothing, houses were built when necessary, with-
out iron, glass or money. Wooden hinges even were not un-
common within the memory of persons now living.
Emigration to this settlement and to Evansville as well,
never wholly ceased. The English settlers moved from
Evansville into the country, but more often from the country
into Evansville, and mixed as one people. In the 40*s and
»»»Thwalte8. Earlu Western Travels. X. 251.
lylthart: Coming of the Ehiylish to Itidiana 111
50's, when the greater tide of emigration better filled up the
unoccupied lands in this section, English people came in large
numbers with those from other lands. All the time communi-
cation had been kept up by correspondence and an occasional
visit between the English in the settlement and their ac-
quaintances, friends and relatives in the old country. This
resulted in large numbers of British emigrants coming into
this settlement and other parts of the county, including the
city of Evansville.
Before the middle of the last century, John Ingle, Jr.,
had established in Evansville a primitive bureau of immigra-
tion, one of the important duties of which was to send money
through John Ross, Banker, Chatteris, England, from the
English here to their friends and relatives in the old coun-
try, to enable them to come over as well as to divide the
profits of a successful life in America with the old people and
needy relatives in England, and not infrequently collect
legacies in England for people here. This continued for
many years.
Through influences such as these, there came from Eng-
land to Vanderburgh county, and to the city of Evansville
while it was still small, a number of young and vigorous men,
who soon became leaders in their various fields. Among
these were leading farmers, builders and contractors in wood,
brick and stone, who in the last generation were, at the least,
equally, if not more prominent and capable than any other
element, in the building in Evansville, and other towns and
cities in this section, of churches, schools, sewers and other
large structures, requiring ability, capital and public con-
fidence. A number of these acquired wealth and position,
and some of them are still living. There was for many years
a section in the center of Evansville below Main street called
Little Chatteris. It is not the purpose of this inquiry to
attempt to deal with the careers of these later emigrants, or
even to mention the names of prominent people among them;
rather to deal with emigrants who came previous to 1830.
In these investigations, upon which much time and labor
have been spent, a personal knowledge of some of the pioneers
mentioned and of most of their children, and of facts and
178
Indiana Magazine of History
circumstances narrated, aided by family history, have been
of material service to the writer. The success and import-
ance of the first British settlement in Indiana lies much in
its beinjr a vital part of the beginning of organized society
and government in this section, and its impress of Anglo-
Saxon ideals at the beginning, out of which and upon which
in a substantial degree were established the present condi-
tions in this community, including the city of Evansville. _
So perfect was the assimilation that the history of the
settlement is not the tracing of a separate element, and but
for a careful record of these details there would be preserved
now no dividing line between the British element and other
elements in the early settlement of this part of Indiana.
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